Feb 5/04
Arrived in Paris at 550 AM.  Still dark.  Uneventful flight except for some turbulence close to Paris.  Maybe an hour out.  Might have slept for 10 min, not sure.  When it was time to sleep after our meal I think they turned up the temp.  I was to hot to sleep.  Head & neck was wet with sweat.  In Paris we had to wait till 800 to get our boarding passes.  Then we got our Toronto boarding passes as well.  Found out we'd see our checked luggage in Toronto & not in Winnipeg as planned.  We'll have to clear custom's in Toronto which is the first city in Canada we'll land at.  Supposedly we pickup our luggage just before customs & clear it there & then continue on.  They'll take it right from customs.  I hope so.  We'll be smarter afterwards.  Had a piece of pie, vanilla pudding & a cinamen roll & peach flavoured nestea for breakfast.  Afterwards I lay down in a waiting area & tied one carryon to the other and used 1 of them for a pillow & slept for almost an hour.  The others went for breakfast & to find a better place to sleep.  It's just over 1 1/2 hr to flight time.  Better go find the others.  Found the others in an area where there were lounges.  A Better area to sleep than where I did.  Spent some time sitting there & then it was time to catch our flight.  First I went to a store & bought 2 small maglites.  They were green & I had never seen this size in that color.  38 euros for the 2 of them.  Boarded uneventfully.  Had a window seat, or at least Luanna should have, thanks to my asking for them when we got our boarding passes.  When I sit at the window my GPS works when placed close to the window.  Kind of fun to know where you are & the speed you are traveling at.  When you come back over Canada you knew exactly where you where.  When you go over a city you know it its Ottawa or Montreal or whatever.  At Toronto you know where you are in relationship to the city.  When we left Toronto we taxied for 7 km from the terminal to the takeoff point.  When we landed in Toronto we couldn't get off because the couldn't get the bridge to attach to the plane.  They got out sme mechanics but they couldn't get it to work.  At that point they decided to go to another place to unload.  By then they had started to unload the luggage & had to finish that before they could move.  We ended up staying on the plane for about 45 min.  Then we had to hurry because we had to catch our flight to Wpg.   We had no trouble with customs.  A dog was led around us to check for drugs I assume.  As far as I know no bags were opened from anyone on the plane.  Jim & I wondered if there was some pressure on the system to push us through because we were cramped for time because of the delay.  It's interesting to note that we never left a secured area & still had to go through a security check.  The trip to Wpg was a bit turbulent & they slowed down for awhile.  We had left about 15 min late & arrived at least that much late.  I had phoned home from Toronto & everyone was there to meet us.  Rick & Daniel came with my mother.  Myrna was there with her kids & Randy & Curt were also there.  Most of Jim's family were also there to meet him.  The Haas's & us had parted ways in Toronto.  They caught a flight to Edmonton.  This last flight had no meal served.  We bought a snack on the plane.  On the way home we stopped at an A&W to top up before going home.  Arrived home before Carmela got back to Tin.  So ended our trip.  A long day of flying & a day of bus travel before that.  We left Oaugau at midnight GMT & arrived in Wpg at 0330GMT.  Not much sleep during that time.  Sure hope we can get back on track soon.  This is a month I won't soon forget.

On our return flight my wife found a nice place to sleep.  It sure beat the place where I slept in a waiting area.  On the way to Burkina we tried to sleep in a children's play area that had some kind of hard rubber for a surface.