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Europe 2010
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Chapter 18
The Return Home, Part II
Sunday, July 4

Flight day to North America. As if signalling the end of our vacation, the last 12 hours had seen mostly cloudy and quite rainy conditions - even a clap of thunder or two. This wasn't of much concern to us, since it was only a short 5-minute drive to the airport's car rental garage, where we dropped off our BMW (with 4,000 extra kilometres on it) and headed inside to check in. Our flight from Zurich to Paris left on time (which was good, since we now knew that Air France had no problem not holding up things for connecting flights). We spent some time in the busy but attractive Terminal 2 at Charles de Gaulle in Paris, then boarded our 777 for the trip back to Canada. Timely advanced-online checkin had netted us three good seats very near the front of the plane. Last in and First out is always quite nice on these high-density flights!
RJ-85 Loading
RJ-85
Over the french countryside
CDG Terminal 2
AF 777-300ER
The Superjumbo
Our flying track west over the North Atlantic crossed right over the southern tip of Greenland. The view was mostly obscured by clouds except, fortunately, for this part near Greenland, and I had great views of the southern icecaps, big fjords, and tundra, and some very impressive big, long valley glaciers.
Just like us
Just like us
Leaving Continental Europe
English Channel Wind-farm
The North Atlantic
Fjords of Greenland
Approaching Greenland
Glaciers and Fjords
A switchbacking glacier
A Glacier's Snout
Kangersuneq Qingorleq Glacier
Impressive Terrain Below
So, Greenland was cool. What wasn't so cool was the misorganization of our Air France bus from Montreal back to Ottawa. The bus wasn't waiting for us at the appointed time, and the staff responsible seemed disorganized and unaware of what was going on. It was only at our prodding that they started making calls and getting things done. On top of that, when the bus finally arrived, they shepherded us onto it and then let it sit there for quite a while - on a very hot day and with no air conditioning or air flow of any kind. Needless to say, our tempers rose along the temperature.
Hot and Late
The most important thing, however, was for the bus to get started and moving, which it finally did. We were soon heading west for the two hour drive back to Ottawa.
Post-trip Processing
In all, however, this trip's logistics worked out remarkably well, especially so given the tight schedule we had at times. With the exception of a few days of inclement weather and an unfriendly reception at the home-brew thermal baths near Viterbo, our days were smooth-sailing, activity-filled, and tastebud-satisfying.

You may have noticed that this trip report has come out quite a bit later than is typical for me after a trip. Part of that I can explain away due to the extensive post-processing I had to do of the wedding pictures, which took priority over this report. The other part... eh, well, is probably due to a bit of summer laziness. Anyway, the report is now done. Hope you enjoyed it!
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[ Europe 2010 home page | Introduction | Wedding | Heading to Riva | Wine Tour | Cima Carega Climb | Cima Carega Descent | Cima SAT Climb | Homefood Dinner | Riva Cycle Ride | Rome I | Rome II | Rome III | Rome IV | Pisa | Pisa & Bologna | Dolomites - Lagazuoi | Dolomites - Ferrata Tomaselli | Return Home | Supplemental - Asmir's Bachelor Party | Supplemental - Avellino | Supplemental - Food | GPS Data ]

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