September 16, 2010
This was supposed to be a one day trip to Canada to teach at the Victoria Hospital and the Child Health Research Institute in London, Ontario. Ironically, I went to London, Ontario on the same day that Elliott left on his epic 7-week voyage that starts in London, England. He definitely had the better travel experience! Once of comeflywithd's travel maxims is that when things start to go wrong on a trip, a lot of things go wrong. On the trip to Ontario my connecting flight was unexplicably delayed for 6 hours, which resulted in a 2 AM arrival at my destination, only 6 hours before a busy day of 7 meetings and 2 lectures. However, the delay allowed me to marvel at this fountain in the middle of the Detroit airport and take this cool photo at sunset. Plus, we got a $100 travel voucher. This morning, I was picked up at the hotel for a supposed 6:30 AM flight. We sat on the runway and then had to go back to the terminal due to the new rule that prevents passengers from being held on a plane for more than three hours. After a lot of chaos and confusion we were asked to reboard the plane. The pilot felt so badly that we were held captive for so long without breakfast that he personally bought 3 boxes of Tim Horton doughnuts and had the flight attendant serve them to us. "Tim Horton" doughnuts are synonymous with Canada. The eponym commemorates a beloved professional hockey player who died at age 44 in a car crash under the influence of alcohol and barbiturates. Not only was this the first time I had ever experienced doughnuts being served on a flight, but the fact that Canadians seem to live for their doughnuts made it a nice regional touch!
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