Yesterday was a travel day and a pretty long one considering I was only about a six hour drive from Montreal to begin with.
I have decided that Canadians like lines…or dislike hiring service personnel, at least at Customs, airlines and grocery stores!
Erin dropped me off at the Billy Bishop airport in the middle of Toronto…it’s actually on a small island in the bay. Then I walked in a tunnel to the airport itself…a ferry is also available, but takes longer. I was flying a small airline, Porter Airlines, to Montreal. I had to show my vaccine card and passport to check in (and my carry on was weighed, but with a slight readjustment was allowed on). There was only one person checking people in so the line was long, but fortunately there weren’t a lot of passengers at this airport. Once I reached the terminal (which now has a convenience store, coffee store and restaurant…previously there were no commercial store but there were free drinks and snacks…those are gone). I had to check in again at the info desk for a tag clearing my carry on, but the line was short and there were multiple people answering questions.
The flight was on a turboprop, but the plane was mostly empty and the flight was smooth. My bag was waiting for me by the time I reached baggage claim and after another pretty good walk I found the rental car center, and there was a short line for Thrifty (but a really long one for Hertz). Unfortunately the car wasn’t ready and I waited 50 minutes for it, but the counter person was quite apologetic. There were a lot of people waiting when I left.
Addendum: Interestingly there was an electric car available, apparently a Tesla, which was offered to several people (I turned it down when offered), all of whom waited for a long time rather than rent an electric car. My hesitation was charging it since I was staying at an airbnb and going to a mountain resort. I haven’t seen a charging station here so my decision was sound.
I drove to Mont Tremblant, which is a little over 90 minutes north of Montreal. It’s really known as a ski resort and is very busy in the winter, but there’s hiking and biking and an ironman triathlon in the summer.
I met up and hit with Jeanie MacEachern and played some doubles. I forgot to bring bug spray (I have since purchased some) and got a lot of bites on my face and even on my head through my hat! The weather was nice, not too windy and we hit quite a while since the weather forecast was grim.
After tennis, I went grocery shopping. The store looked both similar and quite different to the USA stores I’m used to. For one thing the aisles are marked only in French. And there was a whole area devoted to maple syrup and things made of maple syrup! The chocolate department was much larger, a fact which I quite approved of! The check-out line was one of the longest I’ve seen…there were three cashiers and the single line stretched the length of the store and wound through to some of the frozen foods aisle! Though the cashiers were efficient, they could use some self check-out kiosks there. It was getting late but still light when I arrived at my airbnb which is near the town in a quiet wooded area.
That brings us to today…the weather forecast was accurate and it’s cool (60ish) and wet. The tournament has been excellent at updating the website regarding the rain delays. The third announcement, saying no play before 2pm and the next update at 1pm (it’s just after 11am now) will be the last…either we will play or the day is rained out. I drove by the courts a bit ago and they looked wet and forlorn.
