Stop Over: Vancouver

Wow. The past 24 hours were really stressful. 😵‍💫
All started with me trying to check in online to my Air Canada flight on Tuesday evening. The first bad news was that only seats in the middle were still vacant for the 8 hours flight to Vancouver 😩 But it got even more ridiculous: I only realised during the online checkin that I needed an eTA (electronic travel authorisation) for Canada 🇨🇦 - although I am only transiting through Vancouver to get to Mexico! 😤 Usually you can apply online for an eTA and it is approved in minutes but exactly on that day the Canadian government decided to schedule a 5-6 hours long maintenance window for the online application form and apologised on its website for the „inconvenience“. Damn IT guys 🤬 (I am allowed to curse like that - being one of those IT guys myself 😉)
However, the 5-6 hours passed and the maintenance messages on the website didn’t go away. I had little time left to get the eTA and the clock was ticking ⏰ It even came to a point where I was picturing myself not taking those flights, scrapping my entire travel plans for the coming months and traveling through Asia instead. 😬
On the morning of the flight, I went to the Airport and gave it another shot. The maintenance messages were still there. That was at least 12 hours after the maintenance window should have closed. Only then I found out that I had to completely ignore the messages and navigate 2-3 clicks deeper into the website to finally be able to access the application from. 🤦‍♂️
After entering a ton of personal data and paying approximately 5 EUR, I had my eTA and was good to go. 😮‍💨

The flight to Vancouver was actually fine but also not spectacular. Only a few bumps due to turbulences but nothing serious. The only mind bending thing 🤯 was that I left Tokio on the 13th of December at 6 pm and arrived today on the same date at 9.30 am - despite an 8 hours flight ✈️ So this is how it feels like when crossing the International Date Line (IDT). But where did the missing time go? The mind-boggling answer is more or less as follows: this is not a true loss or gain of time - it is simply a realignment to match the local time. Your total elapsed time remains the same, it is just represented differently on the clock. (see https://www.quora.com/When-crossing-from-one-ti… for more info)

I am currently waiting in the quite nicely decorated international terminal at Vancouver airport for my connection to Mexico City. So, next time you will hear from me from Mexico 🇲🇽 Stay tuned. 😎Read more