Despite the combined efforts of Air Canada, the Canadian authorities, and the US authorities, I seem to have (remarkably) made my connection to Boston. Which means that in just a few short minutes I’ll be taking off for the final leg of my journey home. Which reminds me of something that impressed me at Paris De Gaulle — you didn’t need to take your laptop out of your bag for their x-ray machine, because, I was told in superior terms, their technology is, indeed, superior. I’m not going to disagree with a Frenchman, especially when he’s right.

In fact, the whole experience at De Gaulle was fairly smooth, with the exception of a lack of automated check-in systems. In contrast, Canada send me through a highly confusing (and poorly marked) sequence of Canadian customs (“Why did you come through Montreal instead of flying directly to Boston from Paris?” “Um, because Air Canada was cheaper, I guess.” “Oh. Well. You’ll see why.”), Canadian ticket check, making me go back upstairs to re-check my luggage, not staffing the luggage check counters, giving me a second customs form to fill out (this time for USA), checking my ticket again, checking my passport again, USA customs, USA supplemental screening (which weirded me out completely), USA hand search of my checked bag, actually checking the bag, metal detector and X-ray, supplemental screening for my laptop, supplemental screening for my backpack, and finally sending me to the farthest away terminal in the place. Goodness, I sure do hope my checked bag made it onto this very tiny plane.

Its funny, because Montreal’s airport is pretty much just a very empty, very slow, very awful, but slightly nicer looking version of Paris’s. After all, everyone is still speaking (and everything is written in) French. I want to go home.