Monday, September 29, 2014

Home again!

You would expect a computer expert to be able to read a ticket in 24-hour format, wouldn’t you; especially so if he has had several months to scan the paper eagerly.

But no, our gallant hero arrives at CDG around 9:30 for a flight billed as “dep 1500”, known as three o’clock in the afternoon.

Here is the boarding lounge for gate five, some 3½ hours ahead of time. Everyone else is hopping on to the Metro or RER right now, bragging about how early they will be.

The hours drag by; the hall fills up.

I spot eight cushy seats near the window, unoccupied, and move across to one of them. I figure that I may as well sit in comfort until someone from “club class” ejects me. No one does, but I am soon joined by other riff-raff who have figured that I am too scruffy to be club-class and that they may as well sit with me in comfortable isolation. The difference between them and me is that they are all gabbling nervously to the people they’ve just spent two weeks with, whereas I am lost in thought.

I see the cabin crew across the hall; my fellow passengers are glancing at their watches as if that will get them to Toronto sooner. But there is a protocol here. First the cabin crew assemble in a quiet nook nearby; then they move in train to the boarding gate; then they mill around there for fifteen minutes; then they board the plane; and some time after that parents and the elderly are called.

Then we board by row number which is ridiculous on two counts:-

First: It makes more sense to board by seat letter. My seat is 25K which means I am in a window seat. 25A is also a window seat. On a 10-seat body, seats 25E and 25F are the centre seats in the block of 4. It would make more sense to board all A, E, F and K and get those furthest away from the aisles in place before filling up the aisle seats. But what do I know?

Second: Even though the announcement clearly states “Rows twenty-six to forty at this time”, and the overhead screens corroborate this, otherwise literate people still stream in the queue to board, and when told by the gate that it is not yet their time, they stand mule-like blocking the way.

Wouldn’t it be more efficient for the gate clerk to smile and pass them behind him/her back into the lounge so that they have to join the end of the queue? Throw a six and start again!

Hah hah. That’d work and it would quickly free up the boarding gate for legitimate ticket holders.

But enough of this thinking business; I am still on holiday, but only just.

I confess to liking the business of being shuffled at airports. I am one sheep in a mob, I know, but once I get on that 192 TTC bus at Kipling, I’m in a chute that will take me to a desk, any desk, that can direct me to the correct desk, that will give me paper with a circled number on it and point the direction to me. I follow that direction and people tell me exactly what to do (“Please remove your belt, sir”) and where to go (“Gate 5” and a finger-point) and what to show (“passport and boarding pass please!”), and when I shuffle past the gate clerk and down the ramp, a smiling youngster inspects my card and diverts me to the near or far aisle where someone else takes me in hand an steers me to my seat.

I eat when I’m served food, sip lightly at water whenever I get a chance, and get off the plane when I have a chance.

True to form my two seat mates have scrambled to be first on board, so with a serious sign of reluctance they scramble out of 25H and 25J and together they block the aisle for other passengers while I arrange my shoulder bag and laundry bag in the overhead bins and settle down into my seat. I apologize for the bodily contact but refrain from pointing out that an extra three seconds wait would have allowed me to locate my seat belt.

Eight hours later we make the smoothest touchdown I can remember. We taxi to the gate and as the brakes grip 99% of the passengers stand up, grab their bags, and stand impatiently for fifteen minutes while various things happen.

I always suppose these things to include discharging static electricity from the plane, hooking umbilicals, checking cabin-crew documents (count of passengers, number of wheel-chairs required and so on), but we all stand, fuming. No one is going anywhere until that door is opened!

I shuffle off, to the left, to the right, with my silly little declaration card (will they ever check to see if I really do live at 3456 Umberton Drive Woolloomooloo?) that includes the statement that I am not bringing firearms, explosives, rabies etc into the country. Nothing about Ebola, but!

Through a border patrol team with guns. Why guns in this confined corridor? Where am I going to run and hide? I’m at least ten minutes from a TTC bus, even if there were no other passengers. Through immigration and a nice chat with the young guy about “laying some ghosts to rest”, then through customs where I deliver the card to a lass who doesn’t seem too enthralled with her enforced interpretation of a letter-box slot.

Through the carousel hall where all those eager-to-disembark passengers are waiting for their suitcase marked with a yellow sticker and a purple ribbon. I shift my orange bag to a perfect spot on my shoulder and walk from the southern end of Terminal 3 (bay 32) to the northern end (bay 12) and hop on the waiting 192 bus with my senior’s ticket.

Gone is the RATP, SNCF, RER and all that. We shake, rattle and roll down Highway 427 to Dundas Street, to Kipling.

I take the subway to Bloor, slowly change to Yonge, hop off at College and as I promised myself, dive into metro for a tub of ice-cream and walk home to celebrate.