Hello Canada

Since I attended the American College of Physicians meeting in 2018 for the first time, I pledged myself I will be attending the ACP meetings every year. I love the content, how it is delivered and get to learn and see new stuff, which makes me fall in love with Medicine more and more. This time the ACP meeting was in Philadelphia. I usually arrange a small escapade around my conferences. Checking the airline prices I realised it would be the same cost if I bought tickets return to Philadelphia or through Canada. This would be a good chance for me to visit another country that I have not visited before, therefore I went on and booked my tickets through Canada. I had 3 days to spare and wanted to see as much as Canada possible during those 3 days. I planned my trip to land in Montreal first, then to visit Toronto, then off to Philadelphia for the ACP meeting.

My flight from Melbourne took off around 10am in the morning, it was 20 min delayed when it landed in Sydney and I had only 40min to to catch the flight to Dallas. After catching the domestic to international Qanats terminal bus, I ran all the way to the gate, just before they called final boarding. It was an A380 flight, my first time on an A380. I was excited to be on this huge flying machine, I have booked an extra 30 dollars to secure a window seat and finally settled in my seat. There was a huge lady in the other corner of the row and a medium built American guy squashed between us, alas for him. The taking off of the A380 was surprisingly smooth and off we went to America. After 2 sloppy meals, bit of movies (Qantas had a good selection of movies) we landed in Dallas.

And I liked the smooth American semi-automated immigration process. I have never had issues with American immigration as I have read in many other places.

Had to go through airport security again as I had to change terminals and finally got to the gate to Montreal. Just 30mins before the gate was opened, we were told gate was changed and went to the new gate, boarded the plane and just when I sat on my seat, pilot announced it was the wrong plane! We were disembarked and had to walk to a new gate, and after waiting another 30mins got on to the correct plane and finally took off to Montreal.

After about a three and a half hours of flying Montreal was below us.

Like the USA, Canada too has a semi-automated arrival system. You need to punch in a few details at a kiosk, they take your picture and you are presented with a receipt to go and meet an immigration officer. The entire process went very smooth and in about 10-15 minutes I managed to clear immigration.

By the time I finished clearing immigration and customs it was past midnight and my good university friend, Lakmali's husband Aruna was waiting to pick me at the airport. 

Off we went to their home, roads were deserted and clean, after a few twists and turns we reached Lakmali's home. And I was welcomed by Lakmali with a beautiful surprise, which can't mention here :) It was good to see my uni friend after almost 10 years. Her mother had cooked a nice Sri Lankan dinner and after having that and a small chat we went to sleep with hopes to explore Montreal the next day.