I’m back in Canada this week, so please don’t call my cell, as it’s getting expensive!
I slept from 12:30am to 2am, and then organizing, dressing up, and packing my bag for a 6:55am flight out of Newark this morning. I drove to a coworker’s house @ 4:30am, and we shared car service to the airport (saving money.) I prefer the Sunday evening flights, but the Ipes had prior committments this time around, so that wouldn’t work this week. Big surprise, I personally am not an early morning person, but you do what you need to do. 🙂
I’ll tell you a big plus of early morning flights — no delays. Seriously, no problems with the flight this morning, and we arrived on time. That never happens, so lesson learned. You know what annoyed me? Canadian Immigration. They have been asking the nuttiest questions to people (I know this personally and anecdotally) every time I come into the country. You never know where they’re going with it. This morning, I had this big, bald, burly guy. As I was walking up to him to hand over my passport and immigration form, a small part of my mind wondered, “Hey, isn’t this kind of guy the type to give me trouble?”
Yeah, he did. He asked the usual questions about what I was doing here, name of the subsidiary, etc. Usually, you just say you are here on business, attending meetings, etc, and they leave you alone. This asks me in a very hostile tone, “What kind of business takes 5 days?” I told him an audit, but he didn’t reply, marked up my form, and didn’t say a word. I then had to talk to the 2nd-level Immigration folks to explain the situation. What a jerk. I tell you, wherever you travel, and it doesn’t matter personal or business, the bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe.
Other than that, smooth sailing, great weather, yada yada.