Traveling is one of my favorite things in life. But sometimes the process of getting to where you want to go can be suboptimal. Thursday was one of those days. Bianca and I were flying Air France to Paris and then had a connection to the south. But about 5 hours into our flight, they shut off all the TVs and informed us that, due to a technical issue with the plane, we'd be making an emergency landing in either Dublin or Brest (in northwest France). The technical issue was an unidentified burning smell.

We ended up at Brest Bretagne Airport and got the opportunity to explore this small and almost food-less airport for about 10 hours. For some reason, they had to split our flight into two planes. So what Air France did was fly a special plane to Brest to pick up and fly group number one to Paris, fly it back to Brest to pick up group number two, and then return to Paris. We were in group number two. By the time we arrived in Paris it was close to midnight local time and we had, naturally, missed our connection a long time ago.

Air France was great, though. They set us up in a nice hotel (Pullman by Accor), gave us boxed dinners, toiletry bags, and complimentary Air France t-shirts, and scheduled us on a new flight first thing in the morning. But then, airport staff found an unidentified bag at Charles de Gaulle. So naturally, the airport went into lockdown. I later learned that when situations like this happen, and they can’t figure out who the bag belongs to, they will often use something known as a water cannon disruptor to neutralize what could be a bomb.

As I understand it, the way it works is it shoots out a high-velocity jet of water that rips through the bag and any possible wires and switches before they have time to detonate any explosives. Most of the time it’s just a bag that somebody carelessly forgot at the airport, but you never know. Safety first. Apparently this happens relatively often at large airports like CDG.

Once that safety protocol was complete, and the bang of the cannon had gone off, we were on our way, only to discover that we had already missed the last airport train. So the final leg of our journey to Paris ended up being us splitting an Uber with a nice French woman who was just in Toronto visiting a host family that she lived with to learn English. That was our travel "day."

But now that the traveling part is over, it's time for the fun bits. So, what can you expect on this blog?

As usual, I'll be posting daily. But expect more travel-related content and photoblogs. The laser distance measuring of impossibly narrow streets. Gratuitous posts about European-style urbanism. A comprehensive review of the "aparthotel" we booked in Paris (which also happens to be a real estate asset class that I'm increasingly interested in). And likely some takeaways from the meetings I have scheduled with French architects and developers.

Enjoy the long weekend, everyone.

Cover photo taken at Brest Bretagne Airport during our 10-hour layover

Traveling is one of my favorite things in life. But sometimes the process of getting to where you want to go can be suboptimal. Thursday was one of those days. Bianca and I were flying Air France to Paris and then had a connection to the south. But about 5 hours into our flight, they shut off all the TVs and informed us that, due to a technical issue with the plane, we'd be making an emergency landing in either Dublin or Brest (in northwest France). The technical issue was an unidentified burning smell.

We ended up at Brest Bretagne Airport and got the opportunity to explore this small and almost food-less airport for about 10 hours. For some reason, they had to split our flight into two planes. So what Air France did was fly a special plane to Brest to pick up and fly group number one to Paris, fly it back to Brest to pick up group number two, and then return to Paris. We were in group number two. By the time we arrived in Paris it was close to midnight local time and we had, naturally, missed our connection a long time ago.

Air France was great, though. They set us up in a nice hotel (Pullman by Accor), gave us boxed dinners, toiletry bags, and complimentary Air France t-shirts, and scheduled us on a new flight first thing in the morning. But then, airport staff found an unidentified bag at Charles de Gaulle. So naturally, the airport went into lockdown. I later learned that when situations like this happen, and they can’t figure out who the bag belongs to, they will often use something known as a water cannon disruptor to neutralize what could be a bomb.

As I understand it, the way it works is it shoots out a high-velocity jet of water that rips through the bag and any possible wires and switches before they have time to detonate any explosives. Most of the time it’s just a bag that somebody carelessly forgot at the airport, but you never know. Safety first. Apparently this happens relatively often at large airports like CDG.

Once that safety protocol was complete, and the bang of the cannon had gone off, we were on our way, only to discover that we had already missed the last airport train. So the final leg of our journey to Paris ended up being us splitting an Uber with a nice French woman who was just in Toronto visiting a host family that she lived with to learn English. That was our travel "day."

But now that the traveling part is over, it's time for the fun bits. So, what can you expect on this blog?

As usual, I'll be posting daily. But expect more travel-related content and photoblogs. The laser distance measuring of impossibly narrow streets. Gratuitous posts about European-style urbanism. A comprehensive review of the "aparthotel" we booked in Paris (which also happens to be a real estate asset class that I'm increasingly interested in). And likely some takeaways from the meetings I have scheduled with French architects and developers.

Enjoy the long weekend, everyone.

Cover photo taken at Brest Bretagne Airport during our 10-hour layover