A short hop to adventure

 Not all journeys start with a long flight. Sometimes, they start with a short hop to a neighbouring city before the real adventure happens. It seems rather counter-productive for us to be flying backwards, to Toronto, to then fly forward, across the Atlantic, and on to Ireland, but alas, here we are. 

Of course, we had to waste time in Montreal, because check-in was online, and security was super-fast, even though Mario scored a secondary check due to a very dangerous bottle of Gold Bond in his luggage. As the agent tossed the offending container of powder into the trash, I muttered under my breath, "If I get athlete's foot, I'm blaming you!" He was unfazed. We spent the next two hours at the bar...

...sipping on one glass of Brasseur de Montréal whitbier each, while looking at the driving route we will be taking out of Dublin airport tomorrow. We also look up some of the locations and historical places used by the Brasseur de Montreal to name their beers. This concludes with the realization that the more we drink, the more we learn, but the less we remember. Time to get to the gate.

We spend more time waiting on the tarmac than actually in the air, and arrive in Toronto before we can actually finish a movie.

Goodbye Montreal

Hello Toronto. Hello CN Tower.

There was not much in the way of inviting restaurants at Pearson when I was doing research last night, and I happened upon one place called Kaplansky, which I can now only pronounce with a heavy emphasis on the second syllable : Ka-PLAN-sky! Turns out, as much as we mocked the name, the food was pretty good. Think Jewish deli and all-day breakfasts : smoked meat sandwiches teetering on top of a mountain of greasy fries, pickle wedge and a whole assortment of mustards on the table to try, and bagels shmeared with a thick layer of cream cheese, sliced of smoked salmon, and a garnish of bright pink pickled onions and green capers. Nothing gourmet, but certainly filling, and it will get us through until breakfast, for sure. 

Now we sit in a comfy lounge not far from our gate, drinking hot drinks and waiting to board our plane. Hopefully we get some sleep on this flight, because otherwise, it's going to be a looooong day tomorrow.

See you on the flipside.