Air France pilots speak first in French, then in one of these flavours of English that epitomize the oh-so-cute French accent.

I didn’t pay much attention to the usual “welcome on board” speech because I was busy browsing the latest movie selection. I mean, I wouldn’t fly the plane, but I know how to get to Ottawa—you just cross the Atlantic Ocean and aim for Canada’s capital roughly seven hours into the journey. Yes, you may have to check where it is on the map first because, believe it or not, it’s not Toronto, but I’m sure pilots have a few maps handy.

I had my headset on, but I could still hear everything.

And here I was, hesitating between two comedies, when suddenly, Mark grabbed my arm.

“Did you hear that?”

“What? Yes, shorter flight time than announced, it’s always like that… it says 7.5 hours and—”

“No, the weather!”

“I know. The weather sucks today in Ottawa. I checked last night.”

“But… are you okay with it?”

“Going to Ottawa? Not at all. The weather? I don’t care, we’re landing at 3 p.m., I’m just going to get groceries, unpack and pass out.”

“It’s crazy! It’s only September!”

I started to wonder what the hell Mark was talking about—or maybe what I missed.

“What are you worried about? Turbulence or rain?”

“Snow!”

“Snow?”

“Yes, he said ‘nuages’!”

“Mark… ‘nuages’ mean ‘clouds’.” He said ‘nuageux,’ cloudy. Not ‘neige.’ Else I’d be out of the aircraft already.”

“Oh… right.”

I gave Feng the “nuage” vs. “neige” French test. Like Mark, he thought it meant “snow.”

Canadians are obsessed with snow, if you ask me.

Mark’s French is pretty decent, but he was exhausted. Just as usual for every transatlantic trip since Air France decided that Ottawa was worth a new route, we had gotten up at 4:30 a.m. to be out of my mum’s place at 5 a.m. and catch the 5:59 a.m. train to Charles de Gaulle airport. This amazing start of the day includes a 25-minute walk to the train station because it’s too early to catch a tram.

At 5 a.m. on a Saturday night, parties were still going strong all over the city. We walked by students puking, dealers wrapping up the night—looked like a productive one—and countless people staggering around, just to make it to the train station, where people who had slept outside the building were just waking up.

Nantes isn’t that bad, really. It’s more civilized during daytime, less so between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.

“Hey Mark, I got us first-class tickets!”

“ARE YOU SERIOUS? How?”

“It cost an extra seven euros, I think… It’s just more comfortable to sleep.”

“Oh, you meant first class on the TGV. Not on the plane.”

You can’t make teenagers happy. I’m learning this the hard way, and Mark isn’t technically a teen yet.

“Are they going to turn off the lights?” Mark muttered when we sat on the train. “How am I supposed to sleep…”

Oh, he did. And I did too, except I woke at every stop because I feared missing ours and ending up in Brussels, the final destination.

I kind of like hanging out in Terminal 2E at Charles de Gaulle. It’s huge, bright and quite fun. Mark went straight for the free PS5 games. I watched the cat-face robot pick up trash, went to smell fancy perfumes at the duty-free shop, bought a coffee at the machine, and wasted time walking from one end of the terminal to the other.

We boarded on time. I said goodbye to France. I didn’t even cry.

And just like that, I traded my French life for my Canadian one. It should have been straightforward, but I crashed. I spent two days organizing and catching up on everything, then two days in bed sleeping because I wasn’t feeling well, and now I’m back to trying to get a grip on things.

At least, the weather isn’t trying to kill me yet.