An unexpected hotel stay...

When we left you last, we were in Bucharest airport waiting for our flight to Munich. We're flying with Lufthansa for the first time ever, and it won't be the last. Excellent service from start to finish.

Landed in Munich right on time and found our connecting gate to Montreal. We only had an hour until the flight was expected to board, so we didn't have time to go into the city and explore, like we did in Zurich on the way over.

The plane started boarding a few minutes late, but that's no big deal. Everybody was on board and in their seats and had been for a little while. Eventually, we started to notice that we should have been moving out by now.

But we just sat there.

Another 10 minutes passed and we hadn't moved. The stewardess came down the aisle telling everyone that there was a problem with the plane's PA system, but they were working on it and hoped to be underway soon. The flight attendant on our side had said half an hour, but I overheard the one on the other side say an hour. Of course they're only guessing.

And we sat there.

Finally, the captain came on the PA system saying that part of it was fixed and they would be warming up the engines soon, hopefully within 20 minutes.

And we sat there.

We've done a fair amount of flying, and this stuff happens occasionally. I had started watching a movie (at least the seatback entertainment system was working), and Ruth was doing a puzzle book. Besides, we had a three hour wait time scheduled for our connecting flight to Ottawa so no big deal.

But the engines never started. After a two hour delay, they came around saying that they were putting us on a new plane. So we had to gather all our belongings and go back to the departure gate.

Sure enough, we got on the new plane and took off...three hours and ten minutes delayed.

Not anybody's fault, and nothing anybody could do about it. Its all part of traveling, so no point in getting upset. And most people were pretty good about it. After all, you really do want your airplane's electrical system to be working perfectly, don't you??

The Lufthansa flight attendants were really good. Never stopped smiling and making sure people were looked after.

Full bar service, including liquor. And as much wine as you wanted. The girl even said to me that if we wanted another glass, simply page her. Then, the next girl coming by had two full bottles to top up everyone's glass if they were only half full. Nice.

Dinner was good. Legroom was fine. The entertainment system is fantastic. Obviously a fairly new plane.

We arrived in Montreal at 9:13pm. Our connecting flight to Ottawa had been scheduled to take off at 9:00pm, so we obviously knew that we had missed it. But there are flights from Montreal to Ottawa all the time so we figured they would just put us on the next one.

They made an announcement saying that anybody with connecting flights needed to see the gate attendant as soon as we exit the aircraft.

Sure enough, they had somebody there handing out boarding passes for the 10:30pm flight. But there weren't enough seats for everybody and the next flight wasn't until 7:10am this morning.

Guess which one we will be on! They already had hotel coupons and meal tickets for those of us who weren't being put on the 10:30pm flight. Totally organized. We were impressed. They sent us to the shuttle bus for the Sheraton Hotel, only about five minutes away from the terminal. It took a while for the shuttle bus to show up, but eventually it did. And it was damn cold outside. It's -22 C (-7F) here in Montreal! Yikes!

We got checked in. Only one problem. It was now 10:30pm, and we had to leave to get back to the airport around 5:30am. They had given us meal tickets worth $20 each for a dinner, and $10 each for breakfast. But the restaurant didn't open until 6am!

So, we went for dinner. We explained the situation, and they let us use up all $60 worth of coupons for dinner. But wow....we're not in Moldova anymore. It doesn't take long to burn up $60 in a restaurant in Canada! Not many choices for us gluten free people. It was $26 each for a grilled chicken breast and quinoa salad. Oh, we're in Canada now, so add taxes to that as well. The bill was $59.82 with tax. We didn't have anything to drink. It was a huge meal, so we asked for a doggy bag and we'll have the rest for breakfast!

Pretty much exhausted by this point, but at least we have a comfy bed!

Our Montreal hotel room.

Hopefull everything goes well for our 7:10am flight to Ottawa. it's only a quick (less then half an hour) flight, and our daughter Lindsey and granddaughter Sadie will meet us at the airport.

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