Parc Avenue
Well, so we did make it to Montréal. But just for a moment it seemed not all three of us were gonna make it.
First check-in at British Airways. We were at the desk well before 11am, our flight was at 2pm, so enough time. We were allowed two suitcases of 32kg per person. One of our suitcases was a little overweight (some 4kgs) but the other was only 20kgs, so one would think that's OK, right? Well not for BA. So we needed tot start repacking stuff in the smaller suitcase. So second try, 32.1 kgs, so anyone with some common sense even mentally challenged people wouldn't even suspect the slightest problem. Think again! Again repacking until every suitcase was NO MORE than 32kgs.
Secondly they couldn't give us seats next to each other on the flight from London to Montreal. 11 o'clock and the flight is leaving at 5 and no seats next to each other?? Come on! But a very firm negative reply and advise to check again in London was the answer.
Third problem: the cage for our cat was "too small". All right I admit, he couldn't properly stand up, yawn, stretch his legs and order a frozen strawberry margarita. So we needed to get a bigger cage. Luckily SN Brussels Airlines sells these cages at the airport. so together with the people from BA we ordered a bigger cage, paid it (79 euros). And someone was going to bring the cage to the desk of SN.
Ok, no biggie. I spent whole friday afternoon rebuilding the cage so it fully complied with BA standards, put an extra mesh, making sure there were no sharp edges and his paws couldn't get through the ironwork. But ok, a new cage would be better. They said it was gonna take 15 - 20 minutes. So we're waiting 20 minutes, 30 minutes, ... nothing 40 minutes back to the desk, "they,re on their way, sir", 45min no show, parents and friends getting nervous, someone whispering "it's an outrage", I try to remain polar bear cool, urge people to get a coffee, make it a ristretto and a double scotch for me, and then finally after more than an hour the guy is there with not one, but TWO cages. The model we wanted was no longer available so he brought the models below and above. The model below was slightly bigger, the one above was suitable for a puma. so we tried the smaller model. Asking the SN lady if that would be fine, if she could ask the pet people from BA to come and have a look and approve the cage. Her unfriendly answer was: "BA gave you all the information you need". After trying the cat in the small cage (he was able to fully stand up), the creature from BA advised us to take the bigger one (it could hold a pool and a sauna if u ask me). After paying an extra 26 euros for the huge cage, we headed back to BA.
The cage was to their satisfaction. so the only thing I needed to do was to pay the extra baggage (the cage was considered extra baggage and the weight also, even so we didn't exceed the total amount of 128 kgs). Payment had to be done at the AVIAPARTNER desk. So I go over there, pay, go back to BA, and check again if everything is all right now? I remember our travel agent saying we had to pay at the airport for the vet. BA seemed unsure: a couple of phonecalls, discussions with other colleagues, phoning to AVIAPARTNER and finally .... oh yeah, I had to pay that extra fee. So back to AVIAPARTNER and then, finally we were all set to go ... correction: we had to go RIGHT AWAY coz our flight was leaving in 30min. so no time for long goodbyes, just a quick hug, fight through to the tears to say some sweet words and chop chop through customs, through security and to the gate.
My parents, sitting in the SKY DOME restaurant saw our cage go into the airplane. That was a relief.
After a swift flight to London, 1,5 hours of standing in line for security was awaiting us. We needed to take of our shoes and couldn't have any liquidy products in our hand luggage (and I so wanted to bring HP Sauce). That left us just enough time to buy a ludicrously priced bottle of Piper (to celebrate our move) and some triangular sandwiches from the pounds we still had from our trip to Scotland). At a BA desk, we checked if our cat was still OK and made it to London and if we could have seats next to each other. Not the slightest problem at all. Like a piece of zesty lemon cake,
At our gate we wanted to make sure our cat was loaded on the plane as well. They phoned, no cat. On the plane, asked the cabin crew to check again. It took them 15min and then .... "I,m afraid we can't find your cat sir, are you prepared to leave without the cat or do you want to be rebooked to another flight tomorrow??" (and spend the night in a hotel at our own expenses). It came a bit as a shock .... well what did we need to do. There was no use of waiting coz we were never going to see our cat in the meantime, so wether he spent the night in a pet hotel and we in Montreal, or we in a hotel in London, things seemed to be just the same for Nyfiken (It's the name of our cat and it's Swedish for curious). So we were gonna leave anyway .... Then they announced there were some technical difficulties that were being sorted out ... and that almost took an hour and just before they shut the doors, someone came up to us to confirm that our cat was onboard. Later on, we checked if the heating was on for our cat. The stewardess seemed surprised and I told her the urban legend from the frisco cat and she laughed it away and said it never occurred (coz all pet owners ask to check the heating of course) but she was going to verify.
So finally we set for Canada, had a nice flight, decent food (I got a thing with airline food) and watched Over The Hedge, bits of Da Vinci Code and X-Men, The Final Stand and arrived safely in Montreal. Customs went smoothly, Immigration gave us our work permit and study permit, our cat and luggage we're waiting for us ... but then we needed to hand in our landing card (stating what kind of nuclear arms you were bringing in the country). We stood in line for 15mins and because of our cat (people around us were deeply dissapointed when they found out that in this humongeous cage there was no ferocious wild beast but just a small black puddy cat) we needed to go to a different line. Since only one guy seemed to be working, we stood there for more than one hour. Payed a 3O pièces fee (In Québec lingo they say "pièces" instead of dollars, like they say bucks in the US) for bringing a cat into the country. We were amazed to say that people from Rumania and from Florida had brought their cat in a small bag ... I was NOT amused in slightest bit.
Eric, our friend from Trois-Rivières, was almost desparate from waiting (especially coz we couldn't reach him to say we were stuck) but was still there. So a 20min ride brought us to our messy but charming flat.
And last couple of days we've been busy sorting things out, getting things organised, getting insurance (my private health insurance cost 800 euros, blimey), getting a computer (Tinneke got a powerbook from University), buying an iMac (should we buy the new 24" or 20" older model but with a free iPod nano), getting Internet, etc.
Eric will take us to Costco's this weekend, a huge supermarket, think MACRO but bigger. And Diether will be our first visitor on Saturday.
As soon as we have Internet at home I'll try to post regularly, coz there's a lot to tell about my new hometown!
First check-in at British Airways. We were at the desk well before 11am, our flight was at 2pm, so enough time. We were allowed two suitcases of 32kg per person. One of our suitcases was a little overweight (some 4kgs) but the other was only 20kgs, so one would think that's OK, right? Well not for BA. So we needed tot start repacking stuff in the smaller suitcase. So second try, 32.1 kgs, so anyone with some common sense even mentally challenged people wouldn't even suspect the slightest problem. Think again! Again repacking until every suitcase was NO MORE than 32kgs.
Secondly they couldn't give us seats next to each other on the flight from London to Montreal. 11 o'clock and the flight is leaving at 5 and no seats next to each other?? Come on! But a very firm negative reply and advise to check again in London was the answer.
Third problem: the cage for our cat was "too small". All right I admit, he couldn't properly stand up, yawn, stretch his legs and order a frozen strawberry margarita. So we needed to get a bigger cage. Luckily SN Brussels Airlines sells these cages at the airport. so together with the people from BA we ordered a bigger cage, paid it (79 euros). And someone was going to bring the cage to the desk of SN.
Ok, no biggie. I spent whole friday afternoon rebuilding the cage so it fully complied with BA standards, put an extra mesh, making sure there were no sharp edges and his paws couldn't get through the ironwork. But ok, a new cage would be better. They said it was gonna take 15 - 20 minutes. So we're waiting 20 minutes, 30 minutes, ... nothing 40 minutes back to the desk, "they,re on their way, sir", 45min no show, parents and friends getting nervous, someone whispering "it's an outrage", I try to remain polar bear cool, urge people to get a coffee, make it a ristretto and a double scotch for me, and then finally after more than an hour the guy is there with not one, but TWO cages. The model we wanted was no longer available so he brought the models below and above. The model below was slightly bigger, the one above was suitable for a puma. so we tried the smaller model. Asking the SN lady if that would be fine, if she could ask the pet people from BA to come and have a look and approve the cage. Her unfriendly answer was: "BA gave you all the information you need". After trying the cat in the small cage (he was able to fully stand up), the creature from BA advised us to take the bigger one (it could hold a pool and a sauna if u ask me). After paying an extra 26 euros for the huge cage, we headed back to BA.
The cage was to their satisfaction. so the only thing I needed to do was to pay the extra baggage (the cage was considered extra baggage and the weight also, even so we didn't exceed the total amount of 128 kgs). Payment had to be done at the AVIAPARTNER desk. So I go over there, pay, go back to BA, and check again if everything is all right now? I remember our travel agent saying we had to pay at the airport for the vet. BA seemed unsure: a couple of phonecalls, discussions with other colleagues, phoning to AVIAPARTNER and finally .... oh yeah, I had to pay that extra fee. So back to AVIAPARTNER and then, finally we were all set to go ... correction: we had to go RIGHT AWAY coz our flight was leaving in 30min. so no time for long goodbyes, just a quick hug, fight through to the tears to say some sweet words and chop chop through customs, through security and to the gate.
My parents, sitting in the SKY DOME restaurant saw our cage go into the airplane. That was a relief.
After a swift flight to London, 1,5 hours of standing in line for security was awaiting us. We needed to take of our shoes and couldn't have any liquidy products in our hand luggage (and I so wanted to bring HP Sauce). That left us just enough time to buy a ludicrously priced bottle of Piper (to celebrate our move) and some triangular sandwiches from the pounds we still had from our trip to Scotland). At a BA desk, we checked if our cat was still OK and made it to London and if we could have seats next to each other. Not the slightest problem at all. Like a piece of zesty lemon cake,
At our gate we wanted to make sure our cat was loaded on the plane as well. They phoned, no cat. On the plane, asked the cabin crew to check again. It took them 15min and then .... "I,m afraid we can't find your cat sir, are you prepared to leave without the cat or do you want to be rebooked to another flight tomorrow??" (and spend the night in a hotel at our own expenses). It came a bit as a shock .... well what did we need to do. There was no use of waiting coz we were never going to see our cat in the meantime, so wether he spent the night in a pet hotel and we in Montreal, or we in a hotel in London, things seemed to be just the same for Nyfiken (It's the name of our cat and it's Swedish for curious). So we were gonna leave anyway .... Then they announced there were some technical difficulties that were being sorted out ... and that almost took an hour and just before they shut the doors, someone came up to us to confirm that our cat was onboard. Later on, we checked if the heating was on for our cat. The stewardess seemed surprised and I told her the urban legend from the frisco cat and she laughed it away and said it never occurred (coz all pet owners ask to check the heating of course) but she was going to verify.
So finally we set for Canada, had a nice flight, decent food (I got a thing with airline food) and watched Over The Hedge, bits of Da Vinci Code and X-Men, The Final Stand and arrived safely in Montreal. Customs went smoothly, Immigration gave us our work permit and study permit, our cat and luggage we're waiting for us ... but then we needed to hand in our landing card (stating what kind of nuclear arms you were bringing in the country). We stood in line for 15mins and because of our cat (people around us were deeply dissapointed when they found out that in this humongeous cage there was no ferocious wild beast but just a small black puddy cat) we needed to go to a different line. Since only one guy seemed to be working, we stood there for more than one hour. Payed a 3O pièces fee (In Québec lingo they say "pièces" instead of dollars, like they say bucks in the US) for bringing a cat into the country. We were amazed to say that people from Rumania and from Florida had brought their cat in a small bag ... I was NOT amused in slightest bit.
Eric, our friend from Trois-Rivières, was almost desparate from waiting (especially coz we couldn't reach him to say we were stuck) but was still there. So a 20min ride brought us to our messy but charming flat.
And last couple of days we've been busy sorting things out, getting things organised, getting insurance (my private health insurance cost 800 euros, blimey), getting a computer (Tinneke got a powerbook from University), buying an iMac (should we buy the new 24" or 20" older model but with a free iPod nano), getting Internet, etc.
Eric will take us to Costco's this weekend, a huge supermarket, think MACRO but bigger. And Diether will be our first visitor on Saturday.
As soon as we have Internet at home I'll try to post regularly, coz there's a lot to tell about my new hometown!
posted by E. Stilker at 1:25 PM
7 Comments:
oh great to hear from you guys! what a stories - travelling with planes seems so much fun these days! glad to hear that the cat (and you of course as well) has arrived safe! looking forward to all the stories!
Happy to hear that you FINALLY made it to Montreal after what sounds like a somewhat harrowing experience. And to think that you arrived in Canada just prior to us leaving for Europe! you should have told us that you would do anything to escape our visit and we may have reconsidered our plans...!
Welcome to Canada and all the best as you adjust to classes Tinneke and to work(?) Erik. Hope to catch up with you by phone in s few days.
Waaaw seg!!!
Didn't know flying could be so difficult. Stupid BA-people! Let's boycot them ;)
I'm so sorry for you guys for all this waiting but... "honger is de beste saus" dus jullie wachten zal wel beloond worden, en het wordt dubbel en dik beloond. Dat wordt daar supergoed! Ben al keibenieuwd!!
Hou jullie goed xxx
i don't understand why all those airlines make such a fuss; In montréal you can park your airplane in the middle of the town apparantly... see http://www.demorgen.be/telex/index.html?newsrss=B342181
:-)
I'm really glad to hear that you made it...keep posting your adventures.
Good Luck in Montréal!
Hi anonymous Bill,
Great to hear from you. Still haven't got internet at home so sorry for the short reply.
It's just too bad that we're not around to show you some of our small but beautiful Belgium. But in a couple of months we'll be able to show you Montreal ;-)
Let us know when ur in the "area" (like Ottawa)so we can meet you.
The airplane Stoffel is talking about landed in our street some 10 blocks from where we live. Next to the Parc Mont Royal.
Every sunday afternoon they have the Sunday Jam over there. Think African percussion, lots of hippies, people selling bracelets and ethnic jewelry (and of course some heavy drinking and smoking "funny cigarettes").
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