Trip beginning...

Woke up early, checked flight times, all OK. Bro takes me to airport in good time. Air Canada is miraculously at my feet when I walk through the door, never have I had such an easy check-in. The Qantas attendant (?) tells me I might be able to change flights at Vancouver where we DO, after all, stop for a change of something. I say No, I have everything organised at the other end, but sneakily wonder whether I should try to change flights and get one direct Vancouver/Minn. Oh well, I'll learn eventually. I see later she has given me a middle seat, ugh! But I take the lottery in this one. Second leg into Minneapolis is a window seat anyway, one put of two ain't bad, and the other good news is that I go through American customs at Toronto, not in Minneapolis so disembarking will be quicker!

So my exit so far is smooth and perfect, the duty free horror strip at Sydney airport remains the same, a gut-wrenching example of consumer excess and I try to close my eyes as I battle through, taking a little time for a spray of Eau Sauvage to raise my spirits, hahaha.

 A quick double strength coffee at one of the many outlets, and I arrive an hour early at Gate 58, waiting in good time and also with Internet access, which was unexpected.

Just got email from H and all was good there. Am boarding now....

Getting my caffeine hit...

Two world chess champions, one above who went crazy, and with Bobby Fischer, below right, who ended up an exile in Iceland.

Halfway over the Pacific, my young French Canadian neigbour is asleep and on my right side, my new Ottawa friend is attending to some business on his laptop. The meal they served was quite good, and I managed to see two movies already before I also try to have a nap. I have discovered there are no flights to Minneapolis from Vancouver so my ticket was as good as it gets, but we do have to go through Canadian Customs at Vancouver and then reboard the same plane for Toronto, where, during a three hour stopover we go through American Customs. I will be very tired so a nap is necessary. But before retiring I must say the Bobby Fischer doco was excellent and showed a tortured Jewish boy, a genius at chess, having a amazing career but totally unbalanced by the absence of family love. His mother also a genius just did her own thing and left Bobby to himself,  but a genius like his was not equipped to cope with this enforced celebrity life.

The film was a great lesson in having a balanced life, but also in having solid family love behind you, neither of which this poor Jewish boy had, and which resulted in some very weird decisions, and ultimately his premeature end in Rekyavik at age 64. The other movie I saw was a nice introduction to French Canadian cinema, called 'Le Confessional',  made in 1996 by famous Canadian director Robert La Page. It was quite an interesting take on Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 movie called the 'Law of Silence', which was also about priests in the confessional which starred the young and troubled new actor Montgomery Clift. It brought the subjuct of homosexuality in the priesthood to the fore and launched the careers of a couple of new great Canadian male actors. Certainly worth viewing but the Quebecois French was sometimes difficult to understand!

Two more fabulous documentaries, one about American prejudice and history, the story of Latinos in the US, and the other a fascinating exploration into cosmic research and the origins of the world.