July 16th. I think! Boston

Good afternoon,

We arrived safely into Toronto yesterday, a little later than promised but still an hour and a quarter to make our connection, plenty of time Right? Sorry wrong...As we had to clear US customs and immigration in Toronto no problem except the line looked like it was for the latest Disneyland attraction, snaking for what seemed like miles.

Oh but I forgot, we waited to claim our luggage at the carousel we were sent to, only to find that because we were connecting to the U.S. of A. wrong carousel. Ta a, offr we go to find the right place, found our luggage and then joined the "conga line" as mentioned above.

Get through that line up to go through security, a samba line this time. and when my turn came, was directed to the "new BODY SCANNERS" It was a "beam me up Scotty" experience. I had to place my feet in the foot marks on the ground, hold my arms above my head and wait for the scanner to revolve around me, was told to step out and wait.

A gentleman approached me and said " excuse me sir, do you have a medical appliance there", and he pointed to where my urostomy pouch hangs off my lower belly. "I said yes I do" and he said " thank you sir" and allowed me to go. I could not believe it, I had anticipated having to show n tell. but no, so of we go at a fast clip, we had 10 minutes to make our connection. Not the best advertisement for U.S. security me thinks!

Our gate fortunately was located near by and we made the flight by the skin of our teeth. and they say "getting there is half the fun". That is the joy of travel these days though and we have to put up or shut up.

The Fairmont is a gorgeous property, but at a kings ransom we expected it to be, what we didn't expect was the upgrade to a suite. with that I thought I'd better not complain about the $14 plus tax to connect to their wifi. Just think, had I not paid for the connection, you all would not have had to suffer through this diatribe and there's no way I'd deprive you of this.

So, we get to spend the night here in a very comfortable bed and leave at 11am to board the M/V Maasdam.

Stay tuned.