Well folks it took a while but I felt the need to complete this blog so I didn't leave anybody hanging...did they make it home? Are they still stranded in Montreal haunting the St. Hubert's....people want to know.

Actually the jet lag has been the major reason for the delayed final chapter. Its part of the story.....

So I left ya'll hanging that we should make it out of Montreal....well we did. We had a 6 hour lay over which wasn't too bad not great that is for sure but no earlier flights.  

The domestic Maple Leaf lounge there has some nice leather chairs with big sony tv's in front of them in the back. I found them hidden away nobody there...sweet....moved all our stuff there and we sat down for some chillin as it was nice and quiet....and I swear not 2 seconds later a couple sits down next to us and starts babbling on their cell phones at a quite annoying level......so much for chillin....

So whilst "chillin" we start to catch the odd weather report...guess where freezing rain and general crap weather is going to hit at around the time we depart.....ohh lets say Montreal...and worse yet Ottawa....great! Checked the flights and all is on time. Could not sleep so just sat drinking cappuccino...not sure if I mentioned on the Frankfurt Montreal leg...I drank way too much....does make the flights go faster but dang a hang over at 39,000 feet sucks.  

So it was time to hit the road finally. Got on the plane no probs so far all is on time but we have to de-ice. This sets us a bit behind. So after a quick flight we start the approach to Ottawa for a "quick" turn around....I swear I didn't see the runway till we were about 2 feet of the runway. But we made it yayyyyy.

Then the adventure began......see it was really icy on the ground. So our pilot taxied real slow and all that so we got in late to our gate...and no crew is there to receive us. So he pulls a u-turn at the speed of sloth and proceeds to wander around the tarmac...kinda like the flight of the bumble bee without the flight and at 2 miles an hour. He parks our bus near another gate and says we have to wait for a crew now.....40 minutes later we pull up to the gate.   Not too frustrating.....about this time they make an announcement that due to weather we are delayed a bit so we should all get off the plane and sit in the lounge for a few minutes....cause its more comfortable....ha ha.  

Spider senses tingling.....not good....so we start to pack up to get off....about this time the nice little girl sitting behind us with her mom is starting to get off....right beside us...she tells mommy "I'm gonna puke mom!!"  Shauna goes into overdrive...quite amazing actually....she knew exactly where to reach in the back of the seat to reach the "Lunch" bag that is conveniently tucked away nice and tightly in the bag with all the magazines.....shame if she had a couple of more seconds it would have worked.....she got the "Lunch" bag to the lil girl about 2 seconds too late.....splat....stuff in the aisle....right next to our seats actually....poor thing. Some of it did get in the bag at least.....(I tell this story cause it comes to play later).

So they put some newspapers on it all so we can get off the plane. We all get off and stand in the lounge pontificating our fate. Right about here we notice the First Officer of our flight go sailing by us in the other direction with his bags and everything. At this point it's a weather delay so we've been told...a few minutes to wait. Shauna phones Andy at home....he checks the web site.....and it has a delay for us with a midnight depature....uhhhmmm it's like 6:30...... Crappppppppppp!!!!!! Then we find out...thru the grape vine...we lost our first officer to another flight, so they have to fly in another one for us from Vancouver of all places.....time to hit the lounge......

Slirp slirp....sniff sniff...tears in beer and all that....lounge is full and they kick us out at 10:30....put a few drinks from the fridge in our bags and go to the gate to sit some more.....to date I've not slept at all....too ticked.

Finally midnight hits...we are not on the plane still.....then in the distance down the hallway we see a pilot heading our way...."MAKE ROOM!!!" I yell to cut the crowds in a vane effort to get the ball rolling here. We actually offered to carry him onto the plane....he thought that was a nice gesture....but unnecessary....fine I said but hey walk and talk buddy....time is a wasting....I actually think we might make it out of this god forsaken airport.

But alas my hopes were in vane. Seems that in the over 6 hours that we were waiting....nobody even tried to clean up the vomit in the aisle....we can't board till it is cleaned up. Kinda funny at this point....the crowd was definitely getting restless. Now this is where some kudos goes out to the gate attendant. She was awesome....she grabs some cleaning supplies and goes to town to clean it up...to get us out of there....it might actually been out of fear now that I think about it.   The lil girl was feeling good now by the way. Mom felt terrible.....specially since they announced why over the PA.....not too diplomatic if you ask me....

Finally we start to board a bit after midnight. The crowd let out a cheer. So the plane is loaded...the door shuts....and then we sit....its very icy out there folks....right about here the Westjet 37 slid off the end of the runway on landing....didn't know that.  

Now it gets funny. We finally pushed back.....and taxied....slower than I can crawl..to de-ice......then to the end of the runway to finally take off.....total time to taxi....1 hour 45 minutes......its about 2:00 am now....then we line up on the end of the runway and sit...and sit.....Pilot comes on...."Folks...we can't get a break here...winds have shifted...we have to go to the other end of the runway to take off....." I swear to god my head almost popped......another ½ hour to taxi there...then the co-pilot comes out to check if we need to de-ice again it's been so long. The only break we got on this flight. Nope we are good to go.... reved up and finally took off....

Been up for 32 hours at this point....was too ticked to sleep....I watched Beowolf on the plane cool flick....felt like I could sleep...so put on me eye blinds ear plugs and settle in...I think Shauna manged to get a few nods about here.....then right about now one of the folks from the back of the bus with a lil baby who was crying quite loudly decided he would walk him around to settle him down....right to the front of the bus about where we were sitting...the blood pressure increase I had seemed to stop whatever urge I had to pass out....so watched tv for the rest of the flight.

We finally arrived at 5:30 am ish....with bags also....yayyyy only been up for 37 hours. Andy and Jackie met us and we felt terrible they even slept in the car waiting for us, seems Air Canada doesn't update flight arrivals after midnight...how nice....

So in the bigger picture....I had it all planned out....we were to get in at 10:30 pm at night after a long trip...nice and tired....go home go to sleep cause its night time. Wake up Monday am....poke around....and get another night sleep till next am and work time. This lil delay totally blew the master plan out the window....and we suffered all week for it I think....enough of this though.

Back to the trip.....people.....we had an absolute blast....sicknesses and all. I can not recommend enough to go to this part of the world. We felt safe at all times and saw so much stuff.....the history...real history is amazing here....every where you look its some thing you read about. Moses is buried here....Jesus baptised there....pyramid there.....Bedouins here....Lawrence of Arabia slept here....yada yada yada.....

Sorry to have to wrap this up as I had a blast writing it....didn't realize how many folks were reading it. Glad we could share our experiences and only hope we passed on a bit of what it was like to be where we were.  

Feel like we need to take another trip to keep you folks happy, next trip I will do it again.......crap now I got to sort all this into a video.....stay tuned....