Crossing the Atlantic

The journey to Canada was rough. I woke up at 3AM on Friday morning, too anxious to sleep. Hopped into the taxi I shared with two members of the UArctic staff at 5AM, and our flight from Rovaniemi to Helsinki departed at 6AM. In Helsinki we noticed that the connecting flight to Copenhagen had been canceled and hurried to book another one - our transatlantic flight departed from Copenhagen, and we didn't want to miss that one. Fortunately all went well and due to the cancellation we had some time to relax and have breakfast at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport. In Copenhagen the transfer time was shorter, which was a pity: the airport is one of the nicest I've ever seen, and I would've loved to walk around a bit. 

First when boarding the Air Canada flight from Copenhagen to Toronto we started to get excited about the trip, leaving Europe behind. The flight felt really long, and the thought of skipping time zones made me feel tired. I watched some movies (disappointed to the AC movie collection) and stared at the map as we flew over Iceland and Greenland. When approaching Toronto, we filled out the forms for customs and I remembered how nervous these occasions made me on our previous trip to Asia and Australia. Well, that was nothing compared to the North American Customs. The officer asked me all the possible questions and few on top of that, doubting the whole Rectors' Forum even existed. What she seemed to be especially doubtful about was that why on earth would someone from Finland be invited to such event in Canada - and why was it just one student. I got through after showing some additional documents of the existence of the Forum. Our flight had arrived late and there was no way we could've made it to the connecting flight, so we once again needed to wait for a new one. So that things wouldn't get too easy, shortly after we got to our gate there was an announcement saying that our airplane is not coming after all, and a new one will be arranged asap. Of course, this would delay the departure even more. We ended up in a tiny plane filled to the last seat, finally arriving to Winnipeg 3 hours later than originally planned.

After the final flight I was so tired, that I really needed to focus in order to stay awake, walk straight and talk understandable English. One of the staff members who flew with me was born in Winnipeg and knew the town well. He had a rental car ready and waiting for us and he gave me a lift to my hotel. After getting to my room, I turned on the computer to quickly send a message home telling I'm okay. I took a hot shower and waited a while to see if C was still awake in the U.S. and I could tell him too I've arrived. We talked on the phone for a while until I had to give up and go to bed. By this time I had been awake for almost 30 hours in a row, sleep was needed.