... but it was a walk in the park compared to the absolute bloody schemozle that was Toronto - New York.

Our flight was at 9.15, which means that you have to be at the airport at 7.15. Admittedly we had a bit of stuffing around returning the hire car, so we weren't actually in the line to check in until 7.25. And what a line it was!

Before I go too much further, you should know the following factiod. Air Canada is bankrupt, and is being propped up by the Canadian government, being there national carrier and all, so it is what I call a "bones of your arse airline".

Anyway, the cue. Enormous, and only two operators checking people in, so it was 8.15 before we got our boarding passes. Which would normally be no problem, except that you have to clear US customs in Canada before you are allowed on the plane. Remember, this was Tuesday morning after the long weekend, so then we were confronted with the biggest line I have ever seen.

It took us another hour to get somewhere near the front of the cue. At this point they were expediting people through who had flights to get on. So we skipped the cue, only to find out that the silly cow who checked us in only gave us one of the two required forms, so we had to get out of the line to fill out this form which wasted another 10 minutes. Interestingly, you don't get asked how much liquor you are carrying when you fly into the US from Canada.

We still had this fantasy that we were going to make the flight, so we bolted for the security, but a major stuff up on my part extinguished the dream. Way back in London, I bought the coolest letter opener, a 6" replica claymore sword. Anyway, we resorted our luggage, and the claymore ended up in hand luggage.

Whoops!

Who'd of thought you wouldn't be able to board a plane to New York city, 4 days before September 11 with a sword in your bag? So you mean the movie Kill Bill is not real? She got on a plane with a Katana....

Anyway, so we finally got to the gate to find we had missed the flight by 10 minutes. The next flight we could be confirmed on was 4.15!!, but we could be wait listed on the 2:15 and 3:15. So we got comfortable in the bar and cranked through a few games of Scrabble, on the nifty Travel Scrabble set we picked up in Montreal and had a few rums. We discovered a brand of rum from Jamaica, Appleton Estate, which is a very acceptable substitute when you can't get Bundy.

It turns out they squeezed us on the 2:15. Now what sort of plane do you think they would run between Toronto (population 5 million) and New York City (population 8 million)? 747? Airbus A340? No. A 77 seat BAe 146, the same type of buzzbox that Santos flies to Moomba. Remember, they're bankrupt....

Fortunately it was only a short flight, and once we landed in NYC we had already done the whole customs caper so it should have been plain sailing from there. Should have been, if they sent our luggage!

That's right, the stupid asshats at Air Canada, despite the fact they had 6 hours to do it, didn't get around to loading our luggage onto the plane. Oh man, that was not good by any stretch of the imagination. So anyway, long story short, our first night in New York was spent sitting around watching TV waiting for our luggage, which turned up at 7 am the next morning.

The worst thing was, I had to tip the courier. I so wanted to say, "here's a tip, don't lose my luggage next time, nimrod" but as usual I didn't have the guts so I just gave him 5 bucks.