I seem to be a magnet for unfortunate flying experiences lately. Today my flight from Ottawa to Toronto was (according to the web) delayed, but when I got to the airport, the folks at the counter knew nothing about that. One of them said, “Do you believe everything you read online?” Then came the announcement we were to take off on-time, followed a few minutes later by the announcement that we were waiting for the flight attendants to arrive so we would be delayed (they likely checked online just like I did).

Finally they loaded us on the plane…..only to park on the tarmac. The captain told us only one runway was operating at Pearson due to the weather so they couldn’t take off. He promised us an update in half an hour. At some point a flight attendant came around and offered us water, which I welcomed. Eventually we did take off, but that isn’t the end of the story.

We circled Toronto for a while, then came in close for a landing but aborted, and climbed back up in the sky. The flight attendant announced that we did this because another plane had not cleared the runway. Scary. So we circled for a while longer and finally landed. There was no in-flight service on this flight outside of the water. My flight was scheduled for 6:30 and it was after 10:00 when we pulled up to the gate.

I had an interesting experience at the airport going to Ottawa as well. At security, Buddy scanned my boarding pass and told me my gate had changed to Gate 20 from Gate 35. He was a busy guy and told this to many people. The only problem is that it wasn’t true. I mentioned it to the person at the desk and asked what happened. She said, “I guess somebody made an honest mistake.”

Finally, I would like to mention a restaurant experience in Ottawa. It was at a popular brew-pub/restaurant. The food was actually pretty good. The problem came when I ordered coffee. It tasted foul to me, and I thought it was because I had just finished a beer and perhaps the flavours clashed. However, I continued to drink this foul brew and when I got near the bottom, there was a whitish gelitanous mass about 1 inch in diameter bobbing around in my cup. It was disgusting. I have no idea what it was.

I’m happy to report I did not get sick from drinking this concoction at least, and I’m thankful for that.  I gave the cup to the waitress who took it to her manager and returned in a few minutes. She told me since I already paid she couldn’t comp me anything I had ordered but she would be happy to offer me a free dessert. Really what I was expecting was for the manager to come out of his cave and apologize for the goo in my coffee. I think they should have been as horrified as I was.  After all, it was unidentified and I might have become very ill as a result. We were leaving and I declined the dessert. I don’t think I’ll go back to The 3 Brewers in Ottawa.