To fully appreciate this story, please remember at all times that I am feeling like a dog. Score out of ten wise I am a three. I have a raspy voice that is rapidly dying on me. I ache all over. And if someone had paid me ten quid I would have stayed in bed and curled up and died rather than traversed continents.
Anyway, whining over. I got up at 0630 (yay) to be there for a 9 am flight from London to Heathrow. I arrive there in plenty of time, plenty of time!!!!, to find that, for some reason the automatic teller won’t read my passport and I have to queue to see a real live person. A real live person who loves to natter it would appear. Each and every time. I waited in the line for thirty minutes while he served two (!!!!) people. Everyone thought he was marvelous as he was filling in the customers on every possible detail of their trip however I was glaring at him, wishing him dead so that someone less verbose would come and serve.
I finally get to the talky man and he tells me that I needed to be here half an hour earlier as I will have to run like the wind to get to the connecting flight (by this time they are boarding.) I give him SUCH a serve however my rubbish voice diminishes any possible threat I could have made and I sound more like a dormouse with PMT than anything.
I do indeed run to the airport gate and again thank God that someone in every airport in the world decided that the best temperature in any airport is subtropical. Why???? Seriously why does it have to be so humid in airports? Do they want everyone to be drowned in sweat while they travel? Surely it costs the airlines money to have clean up the sodden sweat marks off the seats.
Anyway, as this is already an epic and I haven’t even go to the thing I want to discuss yet, I do get there on time and take a trip in what must be the oldest plane I have ever flown in. It still had ashtrays in its seat handles. We miraculously arrive without dying and I enter Charles De Gaulle Airport and go through customs. As I finish customs a man in uniform motions for us all to go “this way” which we do and, before I know it, I am outside in the real world. I look for a baggage carousel to pick up my suitcase and, sickeningly, begin to realize that the luggage is behind the barriers I was just ushered through.
I find a sign regarding baggage so I walk there in the dim hope that my luggage was there. Now I don’t know how long Charles De Gaulle airport is but let’s say five miles. Where I am is about ten foot from the beginning of the five miles, where the luggage was proved to be about ten foot from the end. Fortunately the airport had embraced the “lets make it feel like a rain forest” policy so I could keep myself amused by how many ringlets of sweat were forming on my body.
I do indeed, finally, find the luggage department only to be told that I had to be back where I had arrived and discuss my issues with British Airways. Despite feeling completely crushed at this, I rally myself that I am walking for Britain and I must be shifting some weight even if it is sweat.
I return to British Airways and am told by a woman that I have to re-enter the boarding area and obtain my bag there. I am HIGHLY dubious about this but she is insisting so, for no apparent reason, I try to reenter the boarding area. I get past passport check but my boarding card is naturally no longer valid and I have the wrath of the security people who want to know why I am trying to get into the boarding area so I can blow things up, presumably. I explain to four different people, who between them have enough English to understand what I am trying to do, and they tell me to return to British Airways and get them to sort it. (To be honest, I am not sure why British Airways couldn’t sort this. Surely I wasn’t the only traveller who was ushered out to the exit by well-meaning or malicious security people. I had a bag claim stub. It shouldn’t have been this hard.)
Anyway I again present to British Airways who, this time, give me a form saying why I need to reenter and again tell me to go present to the security at the entrance. This seems even more ridiculous so as soon as I get there I present said form and watch them scoff openly. My voice is completely dead by now. A man, in broken English (and way better than my French) tells me I need to go to Customs and discuss my predicament with them.
I enter customs and meet a large black man who is dismissive of me that I cannot speak French, though to be fair by now I couldn’t speak. I write what I have done down for the man who reads this. He queries that I have left my luggage behind. I nod affirmatively. He then tells me I am a stupid boy for doing so and he will have to help me. What you need to know about French Airports is that it is guarded by Army men armed with machine guns. At this exact point I wished for an army man to be present so I could insert their machine gun into this man’s rectum and fire happily
I clearly get quite homicidal when I feel sick.
Anyway, ultimately after I give the man my meanest wither, he directs me to a customs officer who lets me in to retrieve my baggage. The end. Sooooooooooooooooooooooo fricking simple but for some reason that took two hours while one department played blame the other department.
So I catch a train to Disneyland and am completely and utterly exhausted. My mother is beside herself that I can’t speak. So of course, they keep asking me questions. Ha!
The day improved. The day definitely improved. As weary as I was you cannot help but be charmed by Disney. That and the bitching Thunder Mountain Railroad ride which is seriously awesome.
I was in bed by 9. Dead by 910. More tomorrow.
Read Full Post »
Away For A Bit 