For my return flight to Toronto I had the first row where the 3 seaters become 2. This leaves a corner of extra storage room so more like having 1.5 seats. Boarding the plane was a bit unorganized.First we had to stand in line at the gate to have our passports checked as Canada/US are tight on visa controls now. Once they checked they told us to sit down and wait again. The line was so long as they had to check every passenger on the flight.Then they announced bo...

Each year our company has an annual meeting in Montreal and the underwriters from the Toronto and Calgary offices are flown out. We fly out from Toronto's downtown island airport.There is a short ferry ride across the 100 or so metres to the island. Plans for a bridge have faced strong opposition for fears it will lead to further development on the island which is mostly parkland. A pedestrian foot tunnel is under construction but has faced long delays.Once again...

Somewhere I'd always wanted to visit was Russia. This is a vast country with a rich history and diverse ethnic groups but can not be done in a single trip. For my first visit I planned to start in St Petersburg before taking the train to Helsinki and carrying on thru the Baltic capitals to Stockholm, something else I'd always wanted to do and a popular backpack route.Like China and the few remaining communist style regimes this would involve getting a tourist vis...

For my birthday trip this year I had planned to goto Iceland and then continue across Norway. Originally I had wanted to do Russia but with the Crimea and Ukraine tensions I thought getting a visa would be tricky and they may be hostile to westerners.Iceland had long interested me. In Junior school we had to do projects on four different European countries. After choosing West Germany and France I also chose Iceland. I remember writing about geysirs but having no...

There were two festivals taking place in my neighbourhood this weekend. The Ukrainian on Bloor west in previous entry. Also the Polish Festival in Roncesvalles. I had planned to goto both as they were nearby testing out my new camera.Unlike the Ukrainian Festival I had just left the Polish Festival was a load of **** and hardly compared. Like the Italian festival a few weeks back, it was basically just a big street festival with no ethnic character.In comparison ...