Comfort Inn Airport West, Mississauga, ON

One of the fun bits of travel is the logistical maze - especially when moving around with a house-sized bicycle box. It is certainly do-able, but takes more work than just keeping the bike as a carry-on, which some people seemingly do. Oy.

Last night my friend Filipe confirmed that he would be at the hotel to pick me up at 630 am as he headed to work. I was sure to be down at 6 am since I was not sure how tough it would be to manoeuvre my box around. It actually was not hard at all and I was quickly down to the light-dimmed lobby where nobody but the two night staff were around. What a change from the daytime.

I chatted with them a bit and learned that all of the parts of the hotel are original though much has been changed inside - some onsite restaurants are gone, the 10th Floor breakfast room is now for storage and a casino no longer exists. Not to mention the change out 'front' of the hotel which has now become the 'side'.

I slid my box out and two minutes early, up drove Filipe in a large white cargo van. Nice to see him again, he opened up the back door to a van packed front to back with his tour bikes for work. No problem, he said, and we just slid the box on its side over and on top of his bikes.

We chatted for the ten minute drive to the airport, he would not take a penny (obviously I will need to take him out to dinner again next time) and away he went. I 'popped' the box onto a trolley and rolled my way toward the gates. After about an hour's wait, along came the Air Canada staff who quickly checked me in, sorted out the luggage tag for the bike and even walked me over to the oversize belt to make sure I had no trouble getting it dropped off - which I didn't.

Now free of the box it was a matter of making my way to the ANA Lounge once again to relax, eat and await boarding. Approaching boarding time I headed through the customs check which actually worried me for a moment when people kept having trouble scanning their passports, and with no staff to guide them or help them they could do nothing but stand there and hold up the line. Finally they were told to go through the EU line, I quickly successfully scanned my passport, cleared EU customs departure and zipped over to my departure gate.

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Boarding was delayed a wee bit since the incoming plane had been late arriving, but Priority boarding was soon done, I was settled back into my Seat 3K and before long, off we went.

Soon snacking on salmon, hake and a nice pasteis da nata while I watched a somewhat silly movie, 'The Kingsman'.

I had not decided what I was going to do once arriving to Pearson Airport (YYZ) but quickly discovered I could absolutely not stay in the airport behind security overnight. So I had to get to a hotel.

Re-booking my hotel that I had cancelled, I took its shuttle, got to my room and promptly fell asleep at 7 pm (midnight to me).