veni, vini, amavi

I can’t honestly say that I was thrilled to see land when I opened the curtains early Sunday morning. There was just the slightest bit of red on the horizon before we headed upstairs to the buffet for my last gorge of smoked salmon.

We had an early flight so chose to ‘walk off’ our own luggage which meant hefting 2 big suitcases, 2 carry on bags, 1 knapsack, and 1 pacsafe over the shoulder man bag, down a few flights of stairs. We’d planned an especially early departure so that the elevators wouldn’t be totally bogged down and were off the ship winding our way to customs with no problems. Customs was a breeze with our trusted traveller cards and soon so we were flagging down a cab to the airport.

Printed our boarding passes and got in line to check our bags. After a wait for the agents to get there we were on our way through security (again a breeze), and settled down for the long wait for our flight, which was longer than expected due to a delay. Cue the stress… with only a scant 2 hours in Montreal to make our flight home, we wondered if we’d make the connection. Finally, only 50 minutes late (yikes) we were in the air.

The Montreal airport is reasonably compact, unlike Toronto, so we were soon walking through the baggage claim area. We’d been told that our bags were checked through to Ottawa, but an announcement kept saying that travellers to Ottawa, etc. had to collect their bags before leaving the customs area. WTH. It was hard to find someone to ask but eventually we found an Air Canada agent who confirmed that our bags would indeed end up in Ottawa.

As it turns out, we had plenty of time to make our connection, especially considering that it was ½ hour late also...geesh. It seemed like we might never get home.

When we rolled to a stop at the gate in Ottawa I breathed a sigh of relief, just one more hurdle and we’d be home. Got our luggage - all of it! Carm got the car - it started! And had no snow on it! A good thing since we hadn’t prepared the car with scrapers and all that winter stuff.

We were home. Pat stood by as we gushed over the pets. We hadn’t eaten since 6:30 in the morning so were starving - a loaf of bread and a stack of cheese slices whipped up into the best grilled cheese sandwiches ever. We visited for ages, exchanging tales of adventure.

We were back to reality.

Adia woke us up at 7am which started another busy day. Unfortunately our first order of business was to attend Carm’s Aunt’s funeral, so we bustled into the city for 10am. A stop at Costco to stock up on food was next, and then the mundane really started. Stop for gas, to the drugstore… 

And now here I sit, on the sofa in my place in the sunspot. The house is strewn with the contents of our bags, a heap of laundry sits on the floor, the dogs are snoozing beside me, Carm is on his computer updating our records, there is no dining room to serve supper. We are home, the fantasia faded into a dim memory.

“Veni, Vini, Amavi. We came, we saw, we loved.”

~unknown