We're in Canada!
Sorry for not updating for a while; 20 hours of travel and lugging all those bags was rough!
People's attitudes toward Covid at Amsterdam Schipol vs the Lisbon airport where we had an eight hour (ugh) layover are night and day. Almost nobody was wearing their masks correctly in Amsterdam. Dicknoses, as Danae called them, proliferated. In Lisbon, we saw just a few people who were *not* wearing theirs correctly. That, plus the fact that negative Covid tests were required to get in flights, plus the fact that we've both been vaccinated, helped us both feel better about the whole thing.
The 2 hour flight from Amsterdam to Lisbon was packed, but the 8 hour ride from Lisbon to Toronto was pretty lightly populated. One person near us had an entire center row of three seats to himself, so he spread out and slept. Nice! Seregil tolerated the ride fairly well, even though I was nervous and anxious about him and his health the whole time. I've never traveled with cats and I have this sense that they can be really delicate creatures. Though Seregil has been pretty resilient, 20-ish hours of travel is the longest he's ever had to deal with being in a carrier. Fortunately, I didn't need to worry. He's spending some time here in a closet at the house, but he's also spending some time exploring and visiting folks. He's going to be fine.
So we're settled in to Danae's parents' place in Hamilton. Unfortunately, Danae is sick and has been feeling progressively cruddier over the past few days. Maye she caught something on the planes. I feel fine, and her parents haven't gotten sick either which is good. We worried particularly about her parents when it comes to Covid and sickness in general; they are in their 70s and 80s respectively. Healthy folks, but at higher risk just due to age.
Her parents both really care about us, and I love being around her mother. Her dad is politically conservative, is a climate change denier, and can't understand the difference between fascism, socialism, and communism and seems to think that socialist public policy means Khmer Rouge-like mass exterminations. But if we manage to not talk about his ideas that make me want to scream, he's a really interesting person. He was a little boy in the London area during the World War II blitz, and knowing someone who experienced that is something amazing in itself. He was a draftsman for Ontario Hydro and is into vintage hi-fi gear, both things that I do my best to have fun conversations with him about. It's fun talking infrastructure and electronics with him! Honestly, if he wasn't Danae's dad, I doubt the two of us would enjoy talking with each other, but since he is and we (or at least I) am concentrating on the good parts of hanging out, it's mostly good. He's also trying hard to get pronouns right with me. (Though honestly it doesn't really bother me when he gets it wrong. Danae wishes I was better about claiming metaphorical space for myself, but I'm not.) Unfortunately, her brother has some very similar politics, and I'm not in a position to spend enough time with him to see his other sides. Fortunately, we typically only see him once-a-visit.
We're also beginning to plan our trip to Regina and the process of getting Canadian cell phones and all that fun stuff. Canadian pre-paid plans are completely ridiculous. Your funds expire monthly. It's like the worst parts of a monthly subscription combined with the worst parts of a pre-paid plan. They are also vastly more expensive than Dutch plans. In the Netherlands I was paying 13 euros for 6 GB and unlimited messages and calls. In Canada, it's $40 for 2.5 GB. And it expires monthly. Wow.
Ok, folks are getting dinner together, so I'm going to sign off for now.
People's attitudes toward Covid at Amsterdam Schipol vs the Lisbon airport where we had an eight hour (ugh) layover are night and day. Almost nobody was wearing their masks correctly in Amsterdam. Dicknoses, as Danae called them, proliferated. In Lisbon, we saw just a few people who were *not* wearing theirs correctly. That, plus the fact that negative Covid tests were required to get in flights, plus the fact that we've both been vaccinated, helped us both feel better about the whole thing.
The 2 hour flight from Amsterdam to Lisbon was packed, but the 8 hour ride from Lisbon to Toronto was pretty lightly populated. One person near us had an entire center row of three seats to himself, so he spread out and slept. Nice! Seregil tolerated the ride fairly well, even though I was nervous and anxious about him and his health the whole time. I've never traveled with cats and I have this sense that they can be really delicate creatures. Though Seregil has been pretty resilient, 20-ish hours of travel is the longest he's ever had to deal with being in a carrier. Fortunately, I didn't need to worry. He's spending some time here in a closet at the house, but he's also spending some time exploring and visiting folks. He's going to be fine.
So we're settled in to Danae's parents' place in Hamilton. Unfortunately, Danae is sick and has been feeling progressively cruddier over the past few days. Maye she caught something on the planes. I feel fine, and her parents haven't gotten sick either which is good. We worried particularly about her parents when it comes to Covid and sickness in general; they are in their 70s and 80s respectively. Healthy folks, but at higher risk just due to age.
Her parents both really care about us, and I love being around her mother. Her dad is politically conservative, is a climate change denier, and can't understand the difference between fascism, socialism, and communism and seems to think that socialist public policy means Khmer Rouge-like mass exterminations. But if we manage to not talk about his ideas that make me want to scream, he's a really interesting person. He was a little boy in the London area during the World War II blitz, and knowing someone who experienced that is something amazing in itself. He was a draftsman for Ontario Hydro and is into vintage hi-fi gear, both things that I do my best to have fun conversations with him about. It's fun talking infrastructure and electronics with him! Honestly, if he wasn't Danae's dad, I doubt the two of us would enjoy talking with each other, but since he is and we (or at least I) am concentrating on the good parts of hanging out, it's mostly good. He's also trying hard to get pronouns right with me. (Though honestly it doesn't really bother me when he gets it wrong. Danae wishes I was better about claiming metaphorical space for myself, but I'm not.) Unfortunately, her brother has some very similar politics, and I'm not in a position to spend enough time with him to see his other sides. Fortunately, we typically only see him once-a-visit.
We're also beginning to plan our trip to Regina and the process of getting Canadian cell phones and all that fun stuff. Canadian pre-paid plans are completely ridiculous. Your funds expire monthly. It's like the worst parts of a monthly subscription combined with the worst parts of a pre-paid plan. They are also vastly more expensive than Dutch plans. In the Netherlands I was paying 13 euros for 6 GB and unlimited messages and calls. In Canada, it's $40 for 2.5 GB. And it expires monthly. Wow.
Ok, folks are getting dinner together, so I'm going to sign off for now.