March 21, 2018
Across Canada
This part was easy.
Normally on the day we fly as part of a bicycle trip we get to write about the entertaining problems that always attend getting the bikes onto the plane , and scraping their remains out of the baggage system at the other end. But this time - no transporting of bikes is needed. Instead we are throwing money at the problem by buying the bikes at the other end.
So does that leave us with nothing to write about at this stage? Not quite. But we are reduced to describing normal airport annoyances.
First off there is the fact that security prevents you from bringing any bottled water to the gates area, so that's where you are charged usually about $3 for a 25 cent bottle of water. Our solution is to bring an empty water bottle through security and then to fill it on the other side. Usually we forget to do this, but this time we remembered. Hooray! Just knocked $2.75 off the cost of this trip!
On the other hand it takes more pre-planning than we are capable of to actually bring food from outside for the hours in the airport and plane. Since airlines (especially Air Canada) have given up on supplying free food during a domestic flight, you have the choice of buying on board or buying near the gate. So off I went to look for a sandwich near the gate, at the "Euro Cafe". Euro Cafe wanted $11.99 for a tuna or turkey sandwich. I felt that was about twice the "street price".
Using the time available waiting for the flight, I used Google to investigate "street pricing" at airports, and came up with the estimate of 43% of airports requiring street pricing from their food vendors. This clearly does not include Vancouver. So I wrote to them to ask why not. (Lots of spare time!) The answer of course is basic economics. Demand is there, the competition is under control, what else would you expect? It's stuff like that that had Dodie advising me not to go into economics, way back in university days.
The only other air flight thing to report is the view from the plane over "Canada". It's white! Also the St. Lawrence River, coming into Montreal is 1/3 frozen, 1/3 ice flows, and 1/3 clear. Sitting there in our cycling shorts, this was not encouraging.
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6 years ago
On the ground, Sabrina was right there to greet us. And at the house, Joseph was awake enough to give a big kiss. Tomorrow is a school day, but maybe we can get the kids to call in sick! We will stick around here until flying to Paris next Monday. It works well, because on Sunday is Joseph's 4th birthday party!
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