The Multi-Day Journey Home

Traveling long distances too a foreign destination, while often strenuous, if tempered by excitement, and this positive energy permeates one's entire outlook and disposition.

Returning, on the other hand, is after you've been away from home for however long, the stress accentuated if you have kids. For us, this is where the trip went super sideways.

We had an overnight layover in Toronto, and had plans to stay is a hotel in the middle of the city, walk about for a while and find food, and settle in for an easy night sleep and return to the airport the next day.

So, obviously that happened, right?

Firstly, we had to say goodbye to our epic hotel, the Dikker and Thijs, in Amsterdam:

Return the bikes, and see the public urinal that I remember being in mre places backj on '05:

But, it turned out that the Amsterdam airport sucked to get to, sucked to get through, had terrible signage in the tram stations, shuttle train (the sprinter) stations, the customs area, and inside the international terminal. After chatting up a worker, me trying my best to hide my anger and frustration, he led us to a different line, and we made it through quickly. But our terminal, once we realized where it was located, despite the terrible signs, was at least a half-mile away, and we had to run to make it.

Like a terrible movie.

We made the flight, and headed towards North America.

Hours later, as we approached Toronto, I noticed the fliught icon of the plane, as it appeared on the video screen if you didn't want to watch anything had been settled on 25 minutes for nearly an hour. Twenty more minutes and the trubulence started to get bad, and the pilot came on the intercom. He informed us that yes, we were circling, that briefly Toronto's airport had been closed due to the turbulence-inducing thunderstorms, and that we may be rerouted for Niagra Falls. This elicited a groan, in between nervous oohs and aahs as the cabin lurched in different directions. "We, aaahhh, have, probably enough fuel for that," the pilot said.

Great. 

The bouncing of the cabin in the turbulence for over half an hour led to half of the kids on the flight barfing into their barf bags. Our kids were okay, but it was touch and go with Camille for a few minutes.

When we were finally cleared to land in Toronto, we did, but then got stuck on the tarmac for a while, and then it was announced that there had been a medical emergency on the plane and we'd have to wait for the paramedics to arrive and get the person off first.

Another groan, but at least we had plans. Of course after another half-hour of waiting, no paramedics arrived, and the pilot forced them to let all of us off. At least we hadn't missed our flight---it was the next day. We had to gather our bags since...in Canada apparently, you have to get your bags and put them through customs again.

So...find a cab. Get to the hotel. Drop off the stuff in the room and eat in the hotel restaurant. It was 9:30 local Toronto time when we finally got food, the US was playing Bosnia on every television and a loud contingent of Croatian fans were singing as they prepped for the next day's match against Portugal in Toronto. 9:30 is tough for food, but it was 3:30 am for the kids.

The high-rise density surpasses DTLA

The CN Tower and the Roger's Center

Once the kids got to bed and we had a beer, we went up to bed, mercifully ending a long-ass day.

The next day, as we flew into the sun some more, we passed over part of the Grand Canyon, and eventually made it home after a long taxi ride. Gotta love the 405.

Picasso was very glad to see us, and finally let up on his clinginess.

I tried to get to these posts before too long, as it happened with Southeast Asia back in 2014, or Rome in 2019, things quickly recede to dream status in our memories, and typing these up has allowed me, or forced me, to reflect on them as if I were discussing them with friends or family.

I have a few more posts to go, mostly asides like epic places to stay, beer discussions, movies on the plane, and the field trip in Dortmund that I didn't have the camera for. Anyway, the bulk of the pictures and time overseas is up, in narrative form, and all that's left is to fill in the blanks that only I can see.