Dont go to America

Well, thanks everyone for the comments. It helps to know there are people back home who care. Well, people who like to follow a story, anyway :). We certainly had our share of stories getting here. Here is a brief summary of the second day of paris and getting to canada.

Day two of Paris was pretty much walking and looking and walking. And some looking. Then some eating. We started by visiting the arc, then walking the Champs, then browsing some priceless art. That Michael-angel-something guy was pretty good at chipping stone, eh? Oh, and we saw some stupid lady try take a picture of the mona lisa and get her camera taken away. HAHAHA!!!

I enjoyed seeing and hearing a Renault V10 F1 engine (graphite frikkin EVERYWHERE!!!) and Claire enjoyed the Arc. We stopped in on a cathedral here (Notre), and another there (Sacre) and then passed a Dali Exhibit. All in all a good bit of tourist-ing. We even got shouted at by a rude frenchie. How more authentic could it be?! We trusted the Rough Guide recommendation and had the most incredible meal at a tiny place hidden down a back-alley (they were friendly this time). So when we went to bed we were feeling pretty good. Little did we know that the losing of my left glove the next day was the first of many things to go wrong.

So the glove. And then, in the queue to check in, the dude (security or something equally unimportant) informs us that I need a visa to TRANSIT through America (Marc, you were right - not that we could really have done anything about it that late...). The ticket office says we can't reroute our flight, I should try get an emergency Visa. The Visa office says it will take 4 weeks, I should try popping to Norway quickly instead(He was american, so we know his geography isn't so hot). So we resign ourselves to flying separately and I buy a NEW ticket directly to Toronto.

We go to check Claire in. They decide her work permit papers aren't good enough to transit through the States either (something to do with needing originals which were in Canada - prats). So we (crying and stuff) RUN back to try get another new ticket on the same flight. Thank the Pope (see all that cathedralling helps) we manage, but are now out a BUNCH of cash. A long, but fairly comfy flight later, we find ourselves in the 60s (otherwise known as Toronto Airport) and pick, honestly, the slowest queue in the place. Okay, so that's not an exciting detail, but it pissed us off, so I'm sharing. We get through the customs and what-not and go to try find a flight to saskatoon (don't forget we lost our connections through the states). It's here that we make the discovery that I had, in the frantic panic in Paris, lost our travel card containing another whole lot of cash. Another bunch of cash later we're on a very friendly (albeit slow as hell) flight to Saskatoon, due to land 15 minutes before the flight we were originally scheduled on. Thanks again to all thing heavenly and holy (and lucky), since Claire has a meeting the following morning and we had a hotel booked.

So we landed and taxied (in -17 degree weather - GOOD LORD THATS COLD) to a lovely warm down duvet and the first of our beautiful snowy days in Canada. We had arrived. We looked a lot like this:

More on what went down since then tomorrow. We are happy and healthy and cold occationally. Getting used to the weather and stuff, but as I say, more on that tomorrow.