LA to Quebec City, part 2 (continued).

Yesterday was huge.

The flights were pretty smooth. From LA to Toronto we got to see the landscape below for half an hour or so out of LA... pretty much contonuous desert. Then there was cloud below for the rest of the trip which was a pity and we only sighted land again on our descent into Tronoto. Got a great view of the CBD and Toronto tower on the way in, see the photos.

Lots of the team had a good snooze on the flight after our 3am wake up call in the morning.

I haven't gone out of my way to make friends with the rest of the team after getting my second upgrade to business class in a row. I got lots of "stick" for this. (I fly from Auckland to Wellington a lot for work and so Air NZ gave me a gold card due to my air miles and with Air Canada being part of the Star Alliance network they thought I was special. Hey, I wasn't arguing. They gave me two upgrades and with Jeremy standing next to me he was in to it like a robber's dog.

At Tronoto airport we got through border control and picked up our luggage before boarding our onward flight to Montreal. I wanted to take a photo of the "Welcome to Canada" in lights above border control to show you all but when I raised my camera above my head in the crowd to get the shot I got a reaction from the security staff like I was waving a gun around. Lots of shouting and waving at me. Oops... sorry, I didn't realise this was a capital offence. I'll be more careful in future.

We didn't have long in Toronto, just time for a quick coffee then onto our short flight to Montreal. This time I was in cattle class with the rest of the team.

This flight was only an hour and a half. Again pretty cloudy so we didn't get to see much except on take off and landing.

We made it with no luggage going missing and no other problems which was pretty amazing.

There were two coaches to take us to Quebec City. The first left straight away while the second waited for a hand full of the senior team who had flown LA - Calgary - Montreal and were arriving an hour later.

The bus trip seemed to take a long time. It started at about 5.45pm and we'd been up since 3am. After 20 minutes we were out of the city and onto the motorway to Quebec City. Flat tree-lined landscape with not a lot to look at. After an hour or more some of the senior boys in the back of the bus started singing. They were pretty good and it all got pretty hilarious.

Jeremy had been video taping them then set about editing up bits and pieces of their antics so wen ended up with a dozeon or so huddled around the laptop laughing and cojoling at themselves playing back at half speed, double speed, quadruple speed etc. You get the picture. Anyway, it helped break the trip and give us all somethign to laugh about.

Then Carl and Luke did a great mini-me taekwon-do act. They were hilarious. check out the photos.

We finally arrived at Quebec City at about 8.30pm I think it was. We pulled up at the Plaza Hotel where the tournament organisers were setup ready to receive us.

Mr Burr and Mrs Baigent set about going through the registration details double checking everything and making sure we all had the appropriate neck tags, meal vouchers etc. This took an age and was pretty hard work. The ITF organisers complimented the NZ Team on how well organised we were with our registrations, all sent through well in advance, compared with other teams. Well done to our management team!

The team and supportes tracked across the street to BK for dinner and it was very late by the time the registration process was all complete. ITF didn't want to let us go to our accommodation until all of the details had been completed and everyone's patience was tested.

We finally got on the way yo the university where Mrs Baigent (who, along with the rest of the management team, still hadn't eaten) tried to sort out access to our accommodation with the university people. Again it took ages but eventally we all got to our rooms and collapsed into bed from about 1am.

Les photographies (the photos)...