Day 1
Montreal to Casablanca
21.01.2011 - 21.01.2011
I wake up at 4:30 AM to shower and get ready for the 5:30 shuttle to Montreal's Trudeau Airport. I have left extra time in case the bus leaves the hotel early. There is a fresh blanket of snow covering the grey snowbanks at the edge of the road. They begin the boarding process 1/2 an hour before the scheduled departure. Although I have asked for an aisle seat, I have been assigned a window seat. The good news is the plane is nearly empty and I don't have a seat mate; the bad news is the arm between the seats is solid and immovable so I cannot stretch out across the 2 seats. I watch the lightly falling snow accumulate on the outside of the window. How quickly it builds up and soon I cannot see out. As we taxi toward the runway the snow blows clear of the window. We stop. I hear a crunching noise overhead and then see a pink slush run down the outside of the plane. We are being de-iced. The yellow truck moves around the plane. I can see the young operator in his cab. He sprays the wing so that a phosphorescent green slime now covers the wings and we are cleared for take-off. Only 5500 km and I will be on the continent of Africa. The flight is uneventful. Our plane drops out of the black sky into Casablanca. I have completed the first leg of my trip. There is a sameness to the airport and I cannot tell from inside the terminal building that I have actually left Canada. It is only as I leave the building and see my first palm trees that there is any confirmation that I am not at home. I take a shuttle to the Atlas Airport Hotel. They cannot find my reservation, but I am assigned a room anyway. It is big and lovely and hot. I turn off the room heater and open the window. I have the mediocre supper buffet. I stay up late and watch the Count of Monte Christo movie on TV. There is a large orange moon hanging in the sky outside my window as I drift off to sleep in this new and foreign land.
Posted by AlexRuns 12.02.2011 20:29 Archived in Morocco
