30-9-07 : Travels and tribulations

I’m only going to say this once: NEVER, EVER take a connecting flight through London Heathrow if you can help it.

Now that that’s off my back, I’m here in France, alive!

I knew it was going to be a good day (and-a-half) of travels when lay in bed tossing and turning the night before my Saturday 9 a.m. flight out of San Francisco. For the record, I only managed two hours of sleep.

Driving westbound on 24, good sign indicator No. 2 occurred when I started getting super car sick and had to switch with my mom from the back of the car to the passenger seat.

No. 3 hit me when I arrived an hour and a half early, only to see every line wrap around itself twice. Luckily, I had already checked in online, so I went through the expedited line to check my bags through and then waited in the immensely overwhelming International Security line. That’s when fate stepped in and tapped my shoulder, saying everyone behind me should follow her to an emptier gate. Hey, her name could have been Fate for all I know.

I’m sure I would have missed my flight had I sat through the regular line. But I was probably the 10^th person in line for security and my new line!

And here comes indicator No. 4, they run both of my bags through the x-ray machine, twice. And still neglected to confiscate my “accidentally” packed regular sized tube of toothpaste.

Nevertheless, I successfully boarded my flight – which wasn’t providing any complimentary meals. A flight that left SFO at 9 a.m. and arrived in Washington D.C. at 6 p.m. that night. So here I am pressed for time and only having eaten a fruit tart at 7 a.m. And my stomach still hurts from being carsick. And the guy behind me is an asshole!

Understatement of the year.

When the flight attendant came by asking if anyone wanted any beverages, this guy starts screaming, “COFFEE” at the top of his lungs, three rows before she was even at his. He then proceeded to purchase a “snack box,” which consisted of fruit, yogurt and a Danish. After hearing that last item, he yelled back to her, “I am Denmark.” I think he meant Danish. Whatever, again.

As soon as the yelling subsides, I finally fall asleep. Only to be woken up two minutes later by Mr. Denmark pushing my seat up so he can get out. And when I say get out, I mean he’s too lazy to ask the man sitting in the aisle to move, so he jumps over all three seats, pushing mine into the chair ahead of me. I was actually too shocked to do anything and the second time, I was too far into my slumber to realize what had happened. I think he finally got the drift when I draped my arm over the button to push the seat back, because he stopped -- after jumping into the aisle four times – which really pissed me off because I was ready to give it right back. But instead, I got airsick and threw up two times in the lavatory. Sweet.

Anyways, six hours later we start to land and when people start clearing off the plane, he begins shoving us all in front of him. Dropping my passport and then picking it up because he thought it was his and starts shoving me, FROM BEHIND, to the side of the aisle. Dude, your passport is maroon, mine is navy blue, are you really that big of an idiot?

When I reach for my bags in the overhead bins and he starts snapping at us saying, “Let’s go people,” I turn around and yell at him, “We’re all trying to catch flights here too, and shoving isn’t going to make us go any faster.”

His reply? “Well then go?”

Checkmate: I walked slowly as possible and let people in front of me who were sitting down out before I proceeded. After plowing through everyone when he got out of the gate, he stopped and got confused by the connection monitors, because I read my flight info and headed out in that direction before he even found his number. Double checkmate!

But my story gets better.

From D.C. to London, my stomach decides to rebel against me after eating a pasta dinner, sidelining me in the lavatory for a good 30 minutes. In which I throw up four more times. And not only do I feel nauseous, but my abdomen muscles begin to cramp up in the worst pain I’ve felt this year. You know, a really ideal situation for an eight-hour international flight.

When we land in London, there’s nowhere to taxi, so they drop us off near some remote field on the landing area. That means we have to wait 30 minutes for a bus to come find us and take us to Terminal 3. A bus that drives on the left side of the road!!

Once the bus finally gets going, the driver continues on like a maniac and then stops at the next door for another 15 minutes. Bear in mind that my fight arrived 30 minutes early – my only saving grace in this situation.

Once I get into that terminal, I have to run all the way to the end to take another bus to Terminal 1. Same story here. And then when you’re in Terminal 1, you have to proceed through yet another security check point. The lines there put SFO to shame. As I’m removing my carry-on liquids, the bag rips and all its contents fall out. Geeks like me are probably holding up all the lines to their extensive lengths. When the woman working at the metal detector notices my struggle, she tells me not to worry about it and just to shove everything in the gray bin so it can be processed. And she doesn’t even notice my toothpaste tube. What’s the point of sitting through a 50-minute line if you’re not even going to check anything?!

And then my boarding pass said there’s a STRICT one-hand carry-on limit, so proceed to ticket counters to check a bag through if you have two from the U.S. I did and it’s now 8:15 a.m. – my plane LEAVES at 8:55. Numerous Dutch cut in front of me and the man behind me realizes he’s missed his flight. When I am finally called to the counter, it’s 8:23. And then the ticket woman yells at me for already having a boarding pass, holding it up to the probably 50 people in line to make a display out of my “laziness.”

“People, if you have a pass, LIKE THIS ONE, don’t stand in line. Just go to your gate already.”

Good thing the screens aren’t listed with gate numbers, but instead, ticket counter numbers. So I finally get her to tell me my gate number and I’m on my shove it up your…-merry way. Luckily, only about 10 people decided they wanted to go to Nice this morning, so we didn’t actually start boarding until 8:45 and take off at 9:00. Not bad.

So I’ve made it. I wanted to throw up and pass out at lunch, because I’ve had about three meals and three hours of sleep in the past two days. And I’m already extremely tired from thinking in French all day long. It’s going to pay off in the long run though I feel.

I’ll explain more about the country itself and all my new acquaintances tomorrow! Bonne nuit.