Ontario

I had a great week in Ontario, visiting family and friends. I was able to relive my days as a Sears catalog model with my cousin Steve.

I even made a new friend.

The highlight of the week was the day we spent in Toronto.

First, we went to the Ripley's Aquarium at the base of the CN Tower. It was impressive.

I wouldn't want to live in Toronto, but if I did, I would want this guys job. He gets to feed the Rays by hand.

Then we went to watch the Bruins-Leafs game.

Luckily, the Bruins won in a shootout so everyone was happy. Well, everyone I was with was happy. I'm in St. John's now and I have lots of appointments and tasks to keep me busy until Lori gets here on Dec. 11.

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Flight to Canada

I've been getting a lot of questions about how long my flight was and where did it take me and how did I feel by the end, so I thought I would let you know how it went. There are several ways to get from Port Moresby to Toronto, but the best option this time was to go through Sydney Australia. I left Thursday afternoon and flew to Brisbane Australia and that is a 3½ hour flight. I stayed in Brisbane overnight and then flew to Sydney the next morning and that was just a 1½ hour flight. 

I changed planes in Sydney and then flew to Vancouver for 14 hours. We landed at dawn. 

Once in Vancouver, I had to get off the plane, pick up my luggage, clear customs, drop my bag off so it could be loaded back onto the same plane, then I had to clear security so I could also get back on the same plane and sit in the same seat I just left. Then we had a 5 hour flight to Toronto.

I picked up the rental car and drove through rush hour traffic for a couple of hours to get to my brother's place in Cambridge. From the time I left our apartment in Port Moresby until I arrived here, I was traveling for 47 hours and in the air for 24 of those hours. I'm sure there are longer flight paths in the world, but I wouldn't want to do them. Lori will be flying the exact same route in December, but once she gets to Toronto, she'll change planes and keep going to St. John's, so her trip will be even longer than mine.

Other than the length of the trip, things couldn't have gone better. Every connection was smooth, the lines at customs and security were short, the staff of the 3 different airlines that I flew with were wonderful. All in all, it was pleasant experience, just really really long. I expected to have terrible jet lag, but I feel pretty good actually. Fingers crossed.

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Christmas

Even though it's only the middle of November, I'm sure the Christmas shopping season has emerged back in Canada. No doubt the TV is full of Christmas commercials and stores have Christmas music playing on an endless loop. Even here in Port Moresby we've seen Christmas decorations at the yacht club and displays in the grocery store. I love Christmas, but I'm not a fan of celebrating it so early. I usually get in the spirit around December 10 or 11. This year however, I am in the Christmas spirit early and that's because Lori and I are coming home. I leave on Thursday and Lori will follow in a couple of weeks. It's been 3 years since we've spent Christmas in Canada and we are both excited. I'm stopping for a week in Ontario to see my family. It's been far too long since I've seen everyone. I'm going to watch the Bruins play the Leafs in Toronto with my dad, brother and nephew. Then it's off to Newfoundland for a good old fashioned Newfie Christmas.

This past Friday night, Lori and I were discussing what we are looking forward to the most about Christmas. Things like turkey and cookies and snow. This led to a discussion about our last 2 Christmases in Paris and the things we'll miss this year. Things like chocolate and champagne and Christmas markets. When I looked at the calendar, I realized the markets will be opening very soon and I was a little sad that I won't be there this year.

Then on Saturday morning the news of the events in Paris brought us back to reality. We see tragedies on TV all the time and then move on with our lives. This one however, feels different to us. We know these places and these people. We drove by the Stade de France every time we went to the airport. We've shopped in Les Halles. The restaurants in the 10th and 11th Arrondissements are close to our first apartment in Le Marais. We have friends and co-workers there. Paris is not our home, but after living there for 2 1/2 years, it is part of who we are. Happiness and excitement have been replaced with sadness and desperation. We have serious problems in the world and I don't know what the solution is. Some days I worry that there isn't one. At one point in my life I wore a uniform and put myself in harms' way. I thought it was important and I thought I was helping, but when I look back on it now, it feels like I was trying to put out a forest fire by pissing on it. It keeps you busy, but it doesn't make a difference.

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Cairns

Lori and I had a quick get away last weekend to Cairns. The first thing you need to know about Cairns is how to pronounce it. The i and r are silent (sort of). The closest I could get is pronouncing as Canz. Anyway, it's a lovely resort town in Queensland and it's only 90 minutes away by air.

We had nothing planned and no objective to our mini-vacation except to getaway from our restrictive life in PNG. We went for walks, did some shopping and ate in some great restaurants. It may not sound like a thrilling vacation to most, but to us, it was heaven. You don't truly appreciate safety and freedom until you don't have it anymore. I also got to enjoy some really good Australian craft beer.

It's not everyday you see a kangaroo playing guitar outside a McDonald's. This wasn't even Halloween, just a Friday night.

We got to see some real wildlife as well. These pelicans were hanging out along the shoreline.

I didn't get any pictures of them, but we saw some enormous bats at night. I thought they were pretty cool, but Lori wasn't too impressed.

Cairns is a great departure point to get out to the Great Barrier Reef. We took a day trip out to Green Island to do some snorkeling.

The island is fairly small, you can walk around it in about 40 minutes, but there is a resort on it. There is a strong chance we will stay there in the future.

I don't have an underwater camera, so I couldn't get any pictures of the incredible fish we saw while we were snorkeling, but this guy came to check us out as we were leaving.

It was a great weekend and I have a feeling we will see a lot of Cairns over the next few years.

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