Don't be mistaken, it is not the end of my blog. I still have some time to catch up. So stay tuned.
Here is how it went to come back home.
My flight was leaving at 9:20 from Habana, Cuba, for Toronto, where I would take one last plane before getting home. Without any access to the internet to choose my seat and not knowing if the plane was big or not, I decided to get to the airpot two hours and a half before take off.
I got in a taxi at 6:30 thinking I would eat breakfast while waiting for the plane.
Habana Airport : you need to pay a 25 CCU tax before going through immigration.
After, I tried to get rid of my cuban and argentinian pesos, but the change office refused.
Once in the international zone, I tried to find something to eat. Surprise! No real food even if there are some stands (closed). Plan B : a granola bar bought at the tax free store.
Thanks to the entertainment system which was working, unlike the one in TAP planes, I could watch Hunger Games before landing in Toronto.
There, I had to cross the border. The good news : I wouldn't have to wait for immigration in Montreal. For a strange reason, Canada is one of the only countries where I needed to recuperate my luggage at the stopover to check them in again. At least, they have no excuse to lose our stuff. We are doing all the work.
Since I was on a stopover, I could jump the line and meet the border patrol fast.
« Wow, you've been everywhere! » he says while looking at the stamps in my passport.
« How long have you been gone? »
« Six months!»
« You went to get some experience? »
Well, listen man. One, you're probably younger than me. So for the experience, we'll talk about it when your hair turns grey. And two, thanks for the conversation, but the question "tourism or work?" would have saved us a lot of time.
Being very honest, I checked the box on my declaration to say that I sent some stuff from oversea. Because I couldn't bring everything back in my luggage.
What do I get for my honesty? Lots of drawings on my declaration. And a woman a little too nice saying : use that line please. We have some more questions for you.
Don't know why, that nice tone sounded like the dentist saying "it won't hurt". We don't really believe it.
Of course, I waited on a small chair to have some back pain while I watched them search through the bags of mostly people of colour. Don't call me a racist. I'm not the one who have sent them there.
I was telling myself I had so much trouble closing my bag it wouldn't be nice to open it... I was seeing myself trying to close it back, with the duct tape supposed to hold it all in place breaking under pressure.
And it took a long time. Everybody was going in front of me. Until I lost patience. "I have another flight to catch, Mister."
"We're trying to find the man responsible be we can't find him", the man says.
"But if you miss your flight, we'll put you on the next one..."
"What? No! I have people waiting for me in Montreal. I don't want to waste my time waiting in Toronto for three or four hours while the patrol is taking a break to eat." (I might have change that quotation.)
"We're doing what we can!"
In my head, "what we can" is a way of saying "blah! blah! blah! We don't care about your plane..."
In the end, all they wanted was for me to fill a form to say what was in the packages I sent home before coming back. But it was too difficult to give it to me so I could fill it while I was waiting. Of course it was. I needed to watch the patrol fill the form in front of me while I was spelling the words in french for him.
I might look angry, but know I didn't miss my connection.
After throwing myself on food like a hungry seagull, I took my last flight. The one in which me ears hurt so much I thought my eardrums would explode. Intense pain (thanks to my cold which ALWAYS appears before I take a place). When we landed, I was sweating trying to fight the pain. 24 hours later, I still feel it.
The strangest is, while I was expecting loads of emotions before leaving, I felt nothing at all when we landed. Emptiness. Resignation. A defense mechanism probably, as if the last six months never existed. The brain is strong when it doesn't want to accept a situation.
The best thing is, after that, I had a nice conversation with my favorite godson.
Very calm, in his car seat, he talked to me.
« Godfather? »
« What? »
« I love you! »
It makes at least one good reason to accept to be back...
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