Going, Coming Home, 1995

(May 16 to August 31)

If we walked up to the airline counter and bought a ticket without any discount or restriction, it would cost from $1,500 to $2,500, or more, each. If we bought a discount ticket ($700 to $800), it was good for only 3 months. They require us to schedule our return flight, even if we don't know when we are going to return, then charge extra if we want/need to change that date. We found those things to be true on both USA and European airlines. Those ideas didn’t suit our needs.

We discovered Air Canada had tickets that were good for 6 months, and if we bought them from the right place, the cost was $622 each, round trip. However, we still had to schedule our return, and must pay $100 each if we changed that date and time. We paid our money to “American Travel Ventures,” rather than to Air Canada, but it did work OK, of course.

Our Air Canada Boeing 767 left Los Angeles on time at 8:00 AM on Tuesday the 16th, and arrived in Toronto about 1/2 hour late. We spent about two hours in the Toronto Airport waiting for our half-hour-late Boeing 767, Air Canada flight to Germany. We arrived in Frankfurt, Germany, at 8:00 AM instead of the scheduled 7:20 AM, on May 17.

The plane was not too full, but was full enough so we couldn’t lift the arm rests and lay across several seats, to try and sleep. As usual, we didn’t sleep all that well on the flight, and of course Jet-lag seems to “get” us every time.

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When we were ready to fly home, I had to pay the $100 each for our schedule change, then get in line to check the luggage. Our return flight stopped in Toronto for 4 hours, but since they had US Customs officers in that airport, they checked our luggage and passports in Toronto. Air Canada did not fly out of, or back into the Los Angeles International Terminal, which saved a lot of time on both ends of the trip. Of course we spent hours in the Toronto Airport, both coming and going.

Going through US Customs and Immigration is sometimes the most difficult and time consuming bureaucratic process to be found at any border, but in Toronto, it only took a moment. A couple of times while crossing borders of former “Iron Curtain” countries in Europe we were delayed for up to three hours, but that was more for purposes of aggravation.