Nowadays Meredith and I always fly out of Toronto when we fly to Europe. It is only about five hours away, and it not only costs much less than Cleveland, Pittsburgh, or Detroit, but it offers non-stop flights to most western European destinations. Like Munich. Even though we were aiming for Austria, flying into Munich from Toronto was much cheaper than flying to Vienna, Austria.

The one major downside to flying out of Toronto is that five-hour distance. When you add on the recommended three-hour arrival buffer for international flights, AND you add in the innate Riordan desire to arrive at least an hour earlier than recommended, AND you add in Riordan paranoia about traffic and border crossings and alien invasions and moose crossings, you (meaning me) arrive at the reasonable desire to leave a full twelve hours before your flight leaves at 8:10 pm.

We did not quite make that, leaving home around 9:00 am, but I compensated for that by deciding that lunch and supper should be combined into one meal at the airport itself. Genius! So, of course, after little traffic and an easy border crossing into Canada, we arrived at the airport in Toronto around 2:30 pm. For an 8:10 flight. Um. Yeah.

Still, it was not all bad in that I was relaxed about the time, even when we hit a huge line to drop bags off. I had checked in online, so I thought things would be easy, and they should have been — the line moved along quickly, and I got to a baggage tag kiosk that then promptly told me that it could not help me and directed me to another line to talk to a ticket agent. This line did not move along quite so well, but that was okay, given the five-plus hours we had. We got our bags taken care of, including being complimented by the ticket agent on our packing light, and we headed to security. Where there was a jaw-droppingly huge line. In fact, it turned out to be the biggest airport security line I have ever been in, taking us slightly over a full hour to get through. Who was being paranoid now? It took us over three hours to get from our car to our gate, so if we had showed up as recommended, it would have been very tight.

And, the generous three hours we had at the gate allowed for an expensive airport meal. Meredith was happy to get the Canadian equivalent of chili fries, which is poutine fries, which were covered in gravy, bacon, onions, and cheese curds. I had a more normal burger.

The flight was fine — smooth and uneventful. There was a vast movie selection (I went for Zootopia and Hail, Caesar!), and I even managed to sleep for about an hour and a half, which is not usual for me on a plane.

So we arrived in Munich. Baggage claim and passport control were a breeze — the easiest I have ever experienced, including walking up to the baggage carousel and grabbing our bags that were right in front of us — no waiting at all.

We found the train station with no issues and ran into our first challenge — buying a train ticket. There were touch-screen kiosks, and even English instructions, but we still did not understand everything we were looking at. I punched some buttons and got something that looked right for getting to Innsbruck, but the system would not take our credit card. An Austrian man came over and said something in German. We shrugged and asked if he spoke English, and he said he spoke a little. He then asked where we were going and took charge, punching buttons in a rapid manner and taking our cash (“No card!”) and giving us a ticket. He then held out his hand. I gave him two Euros ($2.50) and we jumped on the train just as it was about to pull out. That was kind, if a little self-interested, of the man, but we still had no idea what we were doing or what kind of ticket we had.

Meredith wisely scoped out a college-aged woman and asked if she spoke English. She did, and she was very helpful and kind. It turns out the man had bought us a ticket to the last town in Germany on the way to Innsbruck, and we could buy the remaining leg of the trip there. She was getting off at the same stop we needed to get off at to catch the southern train, and she printed us a schedule from a machine and got us pointed in the right direction. I am always grateful for the kindness of strangers.

And so, after another transfer and another kind man confirming we were on the right train platform, and after managing to more or less fight sleep for two-plus hours on a very scenic train ride, we arrived in Innsbruck. It was raining lightly as we arrived, but it stopped as we left the station. Along the way we were coincidentally greeted by a Vespa scooter parade — odd things like this are some of the joys of traveling.  We made our way to our fun and funky boutique hotel (the Nala Hotel in Innsbruck — http://www.nala-hotel.at/en/), where we checked in and collapsed in bed. It was 3:00 pm local time, or 9:00 am back home — we had been in motion for 24 hours).

Years ago, Mer came up with a great way to beat jet lag and still enjoy the first day of touring — nap when you get to the hotel for two or three hours, then go to bed that evening at a normal time. It really works — the nap gives you enough rest to get through the remaining four or five hours of the day without feeling exhausted, and you can use those hours to do light touring (eating out and walking around the city).

So, we had a good Austrian meal next to the old town section of Innsbruck, and then we walked down both sides of the River Inn for a few blocks. When we got back to the the old town, we wanted to grab some ice cream, so we went back to the main shopping street, where we heard a piano player singing songs in English (he was quite good) and then a huge cheer. We investigated, and it was a public stage where hundreds of people were watching the EuroCup soccer match of Austria versus Portugal. That was fun to have a public viewing space like that, as well as all of the bars.

We grabbed some ice cream, and then wandered the city for awhile more, finding our way back to the hotel and then back to the old town area near the river to see if we could see any solstice fires in the mountains. Setting bonfires in the mountains on or about the solstice is a tradition in the area, but we did not see any for sure; we thought maybe one light in the mountains could be a fire, but it was not obvious. We are still hoping to catch some over the next few days.

So, we made our tired way back to the hotel, where I drew a bath for Meredith in our room’s very deep tub, and I blogged about the day. It was a smooth start to our Austrian Adventure.