October 15, 2016

We had breakfast and then for 7:45 a.m. met Brendene, Brian, Flo, Carol, Christine and Wendy in the dining room to wait for the call that our bus to the airport was ready. Once called, we disembarked and collected our luggage in the terminal, where they were separated into sections of the assigned tags which had been issued for the luggage and we had attached to the suitcases before setting them in the hall the previous night.

The bus dropped us off at the Barcelona airport at 8:45 a.m. (2:45 a.m. in Toronto) and we walked to the further side of Terminal 1 to find the Air Canada counters.  There was a line of 200 people waiting to get baggage tags and drop off their luggage.  We had to check-in at the kiosk, since we did not check-in online, which didn’t matter, since everyone still had to get their baggage tags. Finally we were in line at 9:10 a.m., with 300 others taking planes to Canada between 11:10 and 12:50. Our plane had an 11:05 boarding time.  The line moved at a snail’s pace, taking 65 minutes before getting the baggage tags to send the luggage on its way to the planes. Next we needed to find the gate and pass through airport security which was fast, just 15 minutes before getting to the departure lounge with 35 minutes to spare. The plane started loading 15 minutes early, but the paperwork was tardy and the plane took off about five minutes late.  Almost noon and in the air (6 a.m. in Toronto)

The plane was a Boeing 767-300 with no TVs on back of the seats. The plane’s entertainment system was accessible from a downloadable app that needed to be downloaded before you boarded your flight, which did not include a map of where on the flight path the plane was located in real time.  Since the tablet was not connecting to WI-FI for the past three days, it could not connect with the plane’s entertainment system.  The old iphone that we brought as backup came in handy to watch a movie on a 4 inch screen.

 The plane passed through six time zones crossing the Atlantic Ocean.  The route took the plane west, near the Pyrenees Mountains of northern Spain, and over the extreme north region of Portugal, then across the Atlantic Ocean to the southern tip of Nova Scotia and over the Bay of Fundy into Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, then starting to descend over Lake Superior to land in Toronto about 2:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m. in Barcelona).  Passengers were served a chicken or pasta dinner about 75 minutes after takeoff and a chicken or vegetable wrap about 70 minutes before landing in Toronto.  After proceeding through Customs and Immigration, we walked up and down to get to a security check point and through it.  We all stopped to get something to eat since there was no meal on the plane home.  After the 3 ½ hour wait, we boarded the plane home and were unpacked in bed by 11 p.m., almost 24 hours of travelling.

Total distance walked today was 4.96 miles.