1 in 70,000,000

I recently read that the odds of being in a plane crash and dying are one in seventy million. Another article I read put the odds at one in five hundred thousand. The second source added that, statistically, you could survive as many as four out of five crashes. Either way, these are pretty good odds.

The first piece of news we heard after landing last week was that Air France flight 447 had gone missing. I haven't done the calculations, but it is possible that we were in the air when that plane crashed. The news kind of freaked me out.

I have never really been afraid of flying, but the thought that the aircraft might fall from the sky while I am on it always crosses my mind whenever I board an airplane. It strikes me as a particularly heinous was to die. If I could rank the ways in which I would like to pass on, a plane crash would be at the very bottom, right after immolation.

So, I was very happy to be on firm ground in my part of the world, where I could do such peaceful things as navigate the streets of Toronto on a bike, something that seems far more dangerous having been to bike-friendly Europe. But, more on that later.

Here is another tiny elevator:

With backpacks on, we often had to enter the elevator backwards or exit backwards. It was difficult to turn around. This elevator was so narrow, I could not stand sideways in it, as it was not wide enough for my shoulders.