A Day of Travel

8:56 am

I will arrive in Dublin at 7:15 am Dublin time. So it's basically like I'm traveling for afull 24 hours. But really it's more like 19 or 20. And that is also counting the five hour layover in Toronto. Which I do. Since Toronto is not Dublin. No offense to Toronto. I here the Canadien's are doing great.

That joke is way funnier than you gave it credit for. Because the Canadien's is not only a Montreal team but also a hockey team. If you didn't know, the hockey season is already over for the Canadien's. So really it's like burning two Canadian cities in one joke. That's what I call efficiency. Also, I don't know if that's how you spell the team name, and I won't even double check because Boston actually has a rivalry with Montreal so people of Montreal should take offense to this. I hope you never win the Stanley Cup.

9:22 am

The captain just said the temperature in Toronto is 12 degrees much to the whispered outrage of my fellow travelers. Long live America.

9:23 am

The flight is schedule to leave at 9:30 and I still don't have a seat buddy. Could good fortune shine on me this morning or will I fall victim to the false hope of the late arrival? Only time will tell.

9:42 am

The plane is on the runway but I still think someone could show up and take this empty seat so I'm not celebrating yet.

11:29 am

Landed in Toronto. Got a little motion sick in the descent which was rough but thankfully nothing bad happened. I will not be back in the US until August. Holy moly.

I listened to Marc Maron's WTF podcast where he interviews comedian Nikki Glasser. It finished about a minute ago so it was pretty much perfectly timed. I've seen Glasser around a lot lately, I saw some of her TV show and listened to her new stand up album so that's why I chose to listen to the podcast with her. The two of them had a very interesting chat about eating disorders (which they both have dealt with and continue to deal with). I think part of why I enjoy listening to WTF is because it helps me realize that life isn't easy for anyone. No one is on a set path from the beginning. Anything and everything can happen, and no one knows what. Especially since I've chosen the path of a writer I feel a connection to Maron and Glasser. We are all so caught in a struggle to express ourselves in whatever way we can (and in every way we can), that sometimes (or even often times) we forget to take care of ourselves. Thankfully I've never dealt with an eating disorder but I've had my own battles that I don't need to get into now as I sit in my seat waiting to get off the plane at the Toronto airport. Where I will spend the next five hours of my life.

This is probably going to be a long post especially since it's already long and the day is young. You've been warned.

12:55 pm or am, I'm never sure on this one. It's almost 1 pm.

I am currently sitting at my gate. My flight doesn't board for another four hours, but I wanted to sit for a moment and gather myself. It's weird here, there's glass walls with food on the other side but you can only go through the door if you have a pass and work at the airport. I don't know why they tempt us. After I walked up to the door to read the sign that basically said "hey idiot you can't go in here" I've since watched several others suffer the same fate.

Anyway the thing I wanted to write about was the other time I was an idiot in the last hour. When I got off my flight I walked straight through baggage claim because I thought it would just meet me in Dublin. I was wrong. And when I tried to get through to the gates me and the great people working at the Toronto airport had to fill out some paper work. I got escorted behind the scenes to make it back to baggage claim to get my bag, which I then immediately checked again. Which made it all seem somewhat silly. But I had five hours to kill so I was in no rush. I enjoyed being escorted through the back halls of the airport. There was even a film crew shooting some TV show called Hello Goodbye (in which they film family reunions, I guess?). It sounded very heartwarming but not something I would watch. But I will go through it to see if they caught me walking through the background. I think that would be a pretty funny visual to add to this story.

Now if you'll excuse me. Time for me to go find some lunch.

2:57 pm

The flight to Dublin doesn't board for another hour and a half at least. But I have been making the best of my time in Toronto. I ate a chicken burger at a place called Paramount. I had to walk what seemed like halfway across the airport to find a place to eat but it was worth it.

After eating I came back and watched the first episode of Community because I can't go anywhere without some Community.

I bought some fruit snacks (which are way bigger than any I've ever had before, nice work Toronto) and deciding what to do with my remaining layover time. I would watch more Community, however, I lost my seat close to the outlet when I got up to get fruit snacks, so I want to save my laptop battery for the plane ride. I guess that's all for now. I'm pretty content so nothing to rant about comes to mind.

3:21 pm

Red alert: a group of about fifteen or twenty fifth graders just arrived at the gate. Seems like fate that they would show up right after I figure out this is going to be a six to seven hour flight.  Too early to tell if this will make the flight more unbearable but it certainly won't make it any better.

4:13 pm

Roughly fifteen minutes until boarding starts and they opened the glass wall. Remember the one from a few hours ago? The one that had food behind it but you needed a card to get through? The one that made me walk far down the airport to find another place to eat? They opened it. Just now. Right before I start boarding. Why Toronto? Why? I thought we had a good thing going.

6:59 pm

That's right. I didn't wait until 7:00 to start writing. I write when I write, not by the clock.

So apparently this flight makes one more stop before Dublin even though my ticket says Toronto ---> Dublin. We are stopping in St. John. I haven't even bothered to look into where that is. I assume it's in Canada but who knows. Rumor is (and by rumor I mean my seat buddies (I had two this time to make up for the lack of any on my first flight (not that I'm upset they are both very nice people))) that we will get the chance to stand up and walk around, but I will be on the same plane to Dublin so it's a pretty brief stop. Sorry those parentheses probably messed up your reading of that sentence.

So far this flight I listened to another WTF with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Which was cool because she's an amazing comedy actress possibly one of the best, but her and Marc didn't really know each other and didn't have a lot in common so it wasn't as good an episode. It seemed like there was constant underlying tension between them. It was still interesting to hear more about Julia though.

10:28pm St. John time

8:58pm Boston time

Confirmed I am still in Canada. After looking at a map St. John seems to be the most eastern part of North America. Part of me hoped briefly that we were in Iceland or something closer to Ireland. But no. Still in Canada.

Just checked Dublin time and it is currently just past 2am there. I am scheduled to arrive at 7am so only five hours left.

You're probably wondering what I'm doing while in St. John. I'm basically on a half hour layover in the gate while they fill up the plane with fuel and clean it up. I find it odd that I didn't even expect to be stopping here until today. If only it wasn't 10pm and a half hour layover or maybe I could have had the chance to explore this place more. Another time perhaps.

When I land in Dublin technically it will be tomorrow I suppose that should do it for today's post.

Look forward to tomorrow's post where I will finally arrive in Dublin. And don't forget to check out my Instagram @mattgoesexploring (or click the camera icon on the top right of this page if you're not on mobile) where I posted a few photos of my time on Toronto.

But most of all thanks for reading! It is quite impressive that you made it this far so give yourself a pat on the back. But not too hard because remember I've been in and out of planes all day and all you did was read a long blog post.

Gotta keep dominance in this relationship.

P.S. I couldn't publish this post before I got on the plane to Dublin, which is why it's late.