Frankfurt - Montreal

When sitting at the airport, one becomes aware of the surrealism of this world. Everyone is wearing a mask. I have never perceived it so intensely among these crowds before. But it's time. After 19 months of minimal travel and no international stay, my plane departs almost on time from Frankfurt to Montreal. Flight duration 7 hours 40 minutes.

The flight is slightly spoiled by my neighbor, a Belgian of my age, who spreads out extremely on the middle seat. Sometimes I think he might like me, because he constantly rubs against my right side - but I think he just doesn't think about it. In general, I enjoy having conversations, but in this case, I find him boring. Not my cup of tea. And so I drift off and alternately surf the internet, which I have treated myself to on board. By the way, it works remarkably well. The stupid mask doesn't bother me surprisingly much. Until Ireland, you still have a clear view of the little world down there, but then clouds move in, and until shortly before Montreal, I see nothing but fluff. During the approach, I don't necessarily notice a big difference to our landscape. In contrast to the western United States, where you have completely different impressions.

The declaration on the computer and the immigration take less than 5 minutes. However, you have to wait in line for about 20 minutes before that. It is immediately noticeable that people are internationally too dumb to wear a mask over their mouth AND nose. But nobody complains. Canadians are very laid-back. They want to know if you are double vaccinated, if you have a negative PCR test, and if you have filled out the ArriveCAN app. Then they are already happy with you as a guest. The country has been closed for 18 months, and I think I can see that they are happy that guests are finally allowed to come again.

I struggle with my suitcases to the Alamo counter. Here too, competent and friendly service. My car is a Ford Escape, a hybrid. That will be good for my gas mileage. In any case, it mostly runs electrically from the airport the 25 km to my apartment. By the way, you don't get any instructions on the car here, you have to do it yourself (man or woman).

I can't tell you how much joy it fills me with when I take the entrance road to Montreal and realize that my personal freedom has just begun again here. I didn't even know that feeling anymore, even though we are already free in Germany in principle. But for me, it was the traveling that I missed endlessly, and these road trips. This is my sixth one, and as always, I want to drift more than plan everything in advance. That worked 5 times already, and considering booking.com and the cancellation options, I don't see a problem either. Besides, the holiday season is over, a significant advantage for this type of travel. In the summer of 2019 in Oregon, it had already become tight with accommodations - but that was the main travel season.

The apartment is way too big for me and has things like a washing machine, dryer, microwave, oven, refrigerator, and freezer that I don't need. But the risk of having to quarantine for 14 days was too great for me, even if it wasn't likely. Who wants to spend 14 days in a tiny hotel room? The neighborhood is pretty rundown, and the apartment is clean but old-fashioned. I would say it has English charm. I find the keys in a box outside the house, just like back then in St. John's in Newfoundland. The bigger the city, the more anonymous it gets. The Canadian niceness can only prevail to a limited extent there. Besides, my landlord is a little annoyed because I canceled the second 12-day block. That was still free of charge (I had also made sure of that). He asks for the reason. I tell him that the Canadian government hardly leaves me any choice with its quarantine regulations - and he is a little surprised. He didn't know anything about it. Now he wants to change the cancellation options. Phew... lucky me.

Since I'm really tired, I don't do anything except shopping (drinks and cookies). And whoever thought that everyone here is bilingual - no way. Many only speak French. I try to explain to them that my English teacher was much nicer than my French teacher, but either they don't understand or they don't care. In any case, no English word is spoken in the beverage store or in the drugstore. So I say 'Bon Nuit' to myself when I go to bed at 7 pm. Because I'll wake up at 3 am anyway. That's 9 am in Germany. You can't do much longer on the first day.