Trip to Montreal: Day 9

 The return journey:

It had been snowing all night long but stopped just in time before we checked out of our hotel at 5:15 am. The 25 minutes Uber ride to the hotel was through the dark. The city was still sleeping on the Sunday morning. 

The US Customs is set up at Montreal airport itself ( also in Toronto and Vancouver) making it really convenient. I was wearing my Kaiser Permanente jacket and that caught the attention of the immigration agent who interviewed me. He asked what capacity I worked, what location, how many years thus far, how many more to go. Then told me he did information technology internship with Kaiser Permanente in Atlanta and was sent to Napa and Oakland in California. All this while a long line was waiting behind me to get through the immigration 😃.

This time we didn’t get seats next to each other. I had a window seat. What a view it was outside as the plane stood on the runway and took off from there! The entire city was blanketed in snow. The St Lawrence River glistened in the morning light. Further into the flight similarly snow covered land surrounding the Great Lakes and the thousands of frozen lakes of Minnesota were simply breathtaking. Later I was lucky to catch a glimpse of the Grand Canyon and the San Bernardino Mountains. As the flight descended into the LA area I got a clear view of the freeway network and between them, the LA river flowing through the urban landscape into the Pacific Ocean. 

The man who sat next to me kept to himself for the first hour or so into the flight. When the attendants served refreshments I asked for hot tea. He took orange juice. The next time they came around about an hour or more later he asked for the hot tea. I took ginger ale. He looked at me puzzled and asked “wasn’t the tea good ? Indians drink a lot of tea”. I told him I chose not to drink it the second time because it is a diuretic and jokingly added that he would have to get up to allow me to go use the restroom if I drank more. From that point onward he seemed comfortable to carry on conversation with me. He was a French Canadian with over ten generations settled in Quebec since the 1680s. One of his cousins was married to an Indian woman from Indore. They had a lavish wedding in Indore about 10 years back but he couldn’t go at the time. He told me a funny incident how one day he was watching over their 2 year daughter and she kept saying to him betto, betto. In French betto means boat so he kept looking around where she was seeing a boat. Finally when the mom arrived the mystery was solved. The girl was speaking in Hindi! Baitho! Asking him to sit down!! 😃. 

He was on his way to Las Vegas via LA. Last year he hit a 9000 usd jackpot so the casino had invited him as a special guest, reimbursing his travel and paying for 3-4 days stay with them. He put it accurately “ they want their money back” 😃

In the time before he got chatty I had managed to read a few pages from Tilak’s Gita Rahasya and reflect on it somewhat. The notes I made out of the reflection need a separate post at a later time. All I will say for now is that the book is profound!

Adwight( our son) picked us from the airport. We stopped in Culver City at this Indian restaurant called Mayura for lunch before proceeding to his apartment in West Hollywood. Roshni( his girlfriend) returned from work so we got to chat with her for a bit before taking leave. We were home by 6 pm. Our dear friend Anu had brought over so much home cooked food for us. God disguises as friends for sure. I was barely awake to eat a bit before going to bed.

Saree was again the Ajrakh I had draped on the first day of the trip on the travel to Montreal. Nothing matches the comfort of this one. Took a picture outside LAX while we waited for Adwight. The Arch at LAX and the upcoming metro station were in the background.