(I originally intended to write this post yesterday in the terminal at YYZ, but the signs proclaiming "wireless internet everywhere in the terminal" failed to mention "for $5.50/hr".)
Yesterday I flew back to Berkeley from Paris, where I spent a great two and a half weeks visiting my sister, along with a three-day excursion to London. On my way back home, I passed through Toronto Pearson airport and used what may have been the very same moveators used by Feist in her My Moon My Man video -- I never miss a moveator opportunity. I considered jumping up and sitting on the handrail the whole way down, but I just didn't see myself doing it without also falling off the other side headfirst.
I love Toronto and almost wish I had scheduled a couple days there on my way home. That's part of why the waiting area after the US customs and security check is always my least favourite part of the airport because it's like you're already kind of in the US. Well, I don't want to be in the US right now, I want to be in Toronto, thank you. There was at least a Tim Hortons near my gate, but they didn't take debit and there were no cash machines around that provided Canadian cash. At least now I can pay for things with USD and not feel completely screwed on the exchange.
I also find it a little funny that Toronto Pearson, probably the single most important airport in Canada, got saddled with the callsign YYZ, almost the very last callsign in the book. I had thought it's because it's relatively new amongst Canadian airports, but a visit to Wikipedia says that's not the case, having existed in some form or another since 1939. Even Toronto City Centre Airport (YTZ) has a better callsign, and you need a frickin' ferry to get there. Montreal-Trudeau (YUL) doesn't make much sense either, but at least there's an L in Montreal (and, I suppose, a U in Trudeau).
Finally, I considered including a Rush joke in here, but I just can't find the appetite to listen to the song now that Wikipedia has told me that it's an instrumental. From what I know about Rush, this means it's bound to be like 9 minutes long.
Current Music: Sloan - Parallel Play
3 comments:
You should have stopped over. We totally could have gone for a couple of crispy Stellas.
Spadina subway station here in Toronto used to have a great moveator. It was originally intended to be two separate stations (one serving the east-west line and the other serving the north-south line) but was made into one as a cost-saving measure. so they put the moveator in to compensate for the 150-metre walk between the two halves of the station. Then, they took it out in 2004. Now people do their best to avoid transferring between lines at Spadina when they can just go one station west to St. George and do the same thing without enduring a 150-metre death march.
Would you believe that it's only about four and a half minutes long? I got to make a documentary this year that prominently featured the airport, and were it not for copyright law, you can be sure there would have been some "angular" Alex Lifeson riffs over the credits.
You should have spun your body on the moveators by lying on anti-parallel hand rails. Wait... do moveators have moving hand rails? Maybe not... why would they need them. They are like the safest mode of transportation.
Post a Comment