Epilogue – Day 18

I tried whatever I could with limited internet to get us to just take the long layover in Toronto instead. It just wouldn’t happen and I got not response to my messages. Oh well. Nothing left to do but stretch and settle into the flight. I didn’t sleep much. But the way back would be easier than the way there…we would “groundhog day” Friday so it would just be like living the day twice.
Once we landed, we hurried through the long gangway and went to the first desk we found. She scanned our tickets and basically told us we’re out of luck since we already were scanned in. There were no more flights out to Denver and they already wanted us to go through customs in Canada. She said we can continue through and try to fight it at the gate but by that time, it became a question of whether or not we could intercept our luggage. We didn’t want risk it, so…. Montreal, Canada, here we come!

Since it was late, customs and immigration was empty. And besides a little issue with one officer telling me one thing and another telling me the exact opposite, we got through no problem. Until I checked the tracker I put in my luggage.

Bags are still in Toronto.

We stood by the baggage claim, hoping my tracker was wrong, but it wasn’t. Went to talk to the claims guy who informed me that our luggage would be on the NEXT flight to Montreal and they would forward it along on our behalf. So it was off to our hotel. I called the number provided and mentally reviewed my French. It was for naught. The guy who answered the phone spoke French in an Indian accent which I completely couldn’t understand. From what I gathered, we needed to meet the shuttle at Door B. We looked where we currently were….A. okay, but the B gate was somewhere else? I wasn’t feeling looking around for it, so I just asked someone. She was super nice and helpful and told us that all hotel shuttles meet up ahead further at Door 3, just around the corner. 🤦

We got into the line of people right as a shuttle arrived. There were SO MANY of us that were headed to the hotel and many of them had a bunch of luggage. The shuttle guy counted, said he’d be back in 20 minutes and took off. After a quick calculation, I determined that the little sanity we had left was worth a $16 Uber ride. So I booked it and we headed down the stairs to meet him.

It was absolute chaos at the pickup area. The sound of horns was relentless. Uber drivers were just parking wherever, people where coming in and out of cars wherever and some dude on his way to the Uber in the street let his cart fall on amother Uber’s car and just dipped. The police were already there, and they handled it and soon the line cleared enough to get traffic rolling again. Elijah spotted our car and we quickly jumped in before speeding away towards our hotel. The whole evening was like double culture shock. We had become so used to the Japanese way of quiet, courtesy and precision and this was completely opposite from that.

We arrived at the hotel right after the first shuttle. We waited in line and managed to check in without issue. It was late so the restaurant was closing, so we left Juli at the hotel and decided to try Tim Hortons across the highway. (Don’t panic, there was a weird, sketchy walkway going underneath) Another culture shock. The walkway was regular path. We really underestimated how clean Japan was. This had normal trash lying around everywhere, but in Japan a walkway like this would have spotless.

The Tim Hortons was only open to drive through, so we headed back, enjoying the cool Canadian night. We got back and the next shuttle had arrived, taking the attention of the workers. So we lazed around a bit and put our feet up while we waited. (Literally. my legs were swollen from the flight)
We got our snacks and dinner (frozen tortellini, presumably packaged from their kitchen) and finished the evening off in our rooms, tired, smelly and ill tempered, but at least we were comfortable.