Yan and I met up at the Ottawa airport to depart on our 5 month journey to South East Asia. We said goodbye to our families, checked our baggage and headed over to security check. As Yan is emptying his pockets, he suddenly realized that he still has his apartment keys...keys that he was supposed to hand in to my parents in order for them to transfer them to Anne who is subleasing his apartment!! As we both look at each other trying to figure out exactly what to do, I tell Yan to run and try to catch up with my parents before they leave to go to the cottage and let the guard know what is going on. I’m left at the security check with my bags as well as Yan’s bag as I wait for him to come back. As I’m waiting, the security guard tells me to go through and wait for Yan on the other side. He passes all our bags through the x-ray machine and since more people are coming through, I grab everything, including Yan’s boarding pass and bag and run to the nearest phone to call my parents in order to make sure they don’t leave the airport without the keys. In the meantime, Yan’s parents were still waiting on the upper level so he handed them the keys and called my parents from his cell phone, explained that he had forgotten to hand them the keys and asked them to come back to the upper level. He decided to leave the keys to his parents since we had about 20 minutes left before boarding time, who, in turn, would hand them over to my parents. Yan ran back downstairs to security but started panicking when he noticed that I was nowhere to be found...as well as his bag and other items no longer being there!! He looks around to see if he can find the security guard that we spoke to before he left, but it turns out that 5 minutes after I passed through security, they had a shift change and so none of the guards know what the heck is going on!! They refuse to let him through since he doesn’t have his boarding pass, and tell him to call me...alas, none of us have cell phones on us!! Finally, as I’m hanging up the phone with my parents, a security guard taps my back and says: “he needs his boarding pass”. Just realizing that I’m holding his boarding pass, I hang up with my parents, grab our stuff and head back to security. I give Yan (who has a freaked out look on his face) his boarding pass and he finally goes through security, but still feeling a bit frazzled and probably hating me (although he will never admit to this!!) :).
Hate is such a strong word... No but really, I’m all about the easy going travelling, but imagine this: As you know people are boarding, you’re running out of security, up stairs and outside, finding your family THANKFULLY, and this only because you have young nephews that need to be placed into car seats or else they’d be long gone! You hand over the keys to your sister-in-law with instructions as to what key is for what, think to call Emilie’s parents and say what happened (btw, your dad is taking photos of you from his car the whole time, now you know where I get it from!) and then run back to security where Emilie is NOT there, they’re asking you for your boarding pass which you do NOT have, and you don’t recognize ANYONE who is working there!!! You’re told you cannot under any condition go over there, they don’t know what you’re talking about because they just changed shifts and they’re probably looking around for their tazers already, and all they suggest is that you call her (though neither of you has a phone) or make a general announcement from upstairs when the plane is already boarding!! Many things were running through my head... Thankfully Emilie decided to show up with my boarding pass and belongings and I was allowed to go... All in all, a hell of a start to the trip! :)
As soon as we get to our boarding gate, passengers have already begun boarding. We decide to sit down so Yan can get over what just happened (and get his heart rate down!) and board when the line up has died down. As we are boarding the plane and walking through first class in order to get to our seat, Yan turns to me and says: “Isn’t that Alexandre Despatie?” to which my only answer is: “ I don’t know but he’s hot!!”. Laughing, we both keep walking and get to our seat. At this point, Yan is STILL talking about Alexandre Despatie and trying to figure out if we can catch up to him once we land in Montreal and take a picture with him. The rest of the flight to Montreal (about 25 minutes) was uneventful!
We get to Montreal ahead of schedule and decide that since we have A LOT of time to kill, we should walk around and explore the airport and get a bite to eat. We walk along going towards our gate and end up at a door where a security guard is standing by, verifying people’s passports and boarding passes. We look through the gates, where more stores are lining the hall and decide to go through. After having contemplated our food choice on this side of the door (and trying on multiple hats at one of the stores!!), we decide to head back to the other side. We head towards the door but our exit is blocked by the same guard who tells us once we are on this side (which turned out to be the side where all international flights leave from and where the duty free is situated), we can no longer leave...doh!!! You can’t buy from the duty free if you’re not going on an international flight...so we decide to just go buy some water, newspapers and magazine and eat the granola bars we had brought!
We conveniently find a seat (at our gate) in front of a TV. Yan, being exhausted from not having slept the night before (not that I had more sleep than he did ;) ) decides to lay down for a nap. I watch the TV while he’s laying down on my lap and quickly realize that they’re playing the same 25 minutes of video...but not wanting to wake Yan from his much needed sleep...I decide to just watch and daydream of the trip that is to come. After Yan finally wakes up, I try my best to try and get some shut eye but to no avail...I’m way too excited to be sleeping at this point!! We pass the rest of our time chatting, reading and sleeping (for some!) and before you know it, it’s boarding time!! We are finally boarding our Air Canada flight to Paris, settling into our seats (with no superstars to distract Yan) and getting ready for a 6 hour flight to Paris, definitely looking forward to being able to watch a ton of movies!! As they start the video on flight safety, our (yes, only our row from what we can see around us) TVs are defective and we cannot see the video. Worrying that we won’t be able to watch movies, Yan calls the stewardess over. She tells us that she is required to demonstrate to us (the old fashioned way) how everything works and assures us that she will reboot the system so that we have access to the TV. After the video finishes, and the system is rebooted, we are made aware by the head stewardess that there is a problem with the TV system and that we will not have access to the system for the whole flight!!! What are we supposed to do on this 6 hours flight if not watch movies?!?! I decide to try and get some rest and quickly fall asleep. Hours later (really, I think I sleep about 2 hours! Miracle!), being a bit bored, we decide to get my laptop and watch a movie. I open the computer and just as it opens, an error message pops up saying that I need to reboot my computer!! I decide to wait till Yan comes back so he can try to figure out what’s wrong with it....did I mention this was a brand new computer with which I had never had problems and which I bought for this trip? Yeah, I was not impressed!! After trying everything for 20 minutes to get Windows to load again, and getting it to work once but only for a moment before the computer crashed again in the same way, Yan resigns and we put the laptop away. What else could go wrong on this flight you ask?!? Besides me being fully impressed with the Gluten Free meals I had requested (which included bread with my supper and a muffin for breakfast...good ones too!!), as the breakfast is served, they run out of muffins about half way through the cabin...so yes, this means Yan is left without food!! Oh my, what to do, what to do?!? I offer him part of my breakfast (which not only consisted of a yummy muffin, which Yan had half of, but also fruits, a juice and a water bottle) as the stewardesses franticly look for something to offer the other half of the passengers. Finally, they raid the first class kitchen where they find a bunch of croissants....enough to feed half the plane!! Why did they need that many croissants for first class is something I guess I will never know!!
Because one day I may fly first class and on that day, I will eat all those croissants!
We finally get to Paris ahead of schedule, disembark and head to the immigration line up they told us EVERYONE needed to go through. Not being quite sure why we would need to go through immigration in Paris, we wait in line for a bit before Yan heads off to find a toilet.
I was looking for a toilet for you!
He comes back to the end of the line, we check out tickets and realize we need to be at another terminal!! We head downstairs to see if we can find this terminal, check on the TV to see from what gate our flight is leaving and notice that it is not there...did they cancel our flight??? We ask an agent sitting at a booth and he tells us we need to take the shuttle to the other terminal. With uncertainty, we walk through the doors leading outside to the shuttle as a guard is watching us do so. Only once on the other side of the door does the guard get up and asks us what we are doing? We tell him that we need to get to Terminal 2C and so he tells us, not so nicely, that we need to sit down and wait. WELCOME TO PARIS!!! So we do, as does he and we wait. About 10 minutes later, the shuttle shows up and we hop on. We get off at our terminal, go upstairs where the terminal should be and we are greeted with another line up! At this point, we only have about 10 minutes left before boarding and so we ask a woman where our gate is, and she kindly directs us to the line up. We wait in line...again...to go through security and once through, quickly walk to our gate where boarding had already begun. Yan and I both needed to go to the bathroom so I stay with the bags as Yan runs off to find one. When he comes back, I head over and once I get back, we board...with no one left behind us!!
To make this washroom story a bit more interesting, this particular terminal was crazy packed from end to end at every gate from the gate to the other wall where the shops were. And you needed to navigate through this crowd to reach the washroom which, of course, is at the very end of the terminal! The ladies line up was insane and one woman even snuck into a stall in the men’s washroom. What should have taken 5 minutes took at least 3 times that. Basically, if ever you travel through Paris, leave yourself LOTS of time and prepare for the craziness that will surely ensue!!
We find our seats, settle in and are excited, once again, at the possibility of watching tons of movies on this 9 hour flight!!! Guess what???!!!! The TV’s were defective again...but thankfully, after rebooting the system, everything is back to normal, TV’s working, and we are happy!!
Sadly, I must say the gluten free food offered on this Air France flight wasn’t that great and my consumption was minimal...although Yan seemed to not mind it at all since he ate most of it...on top of his own meal! :) The rest of the flight was divided between sleeping and watching movies (probably more sleeping than watching movies) and we arrived at destination on time.
As we disembark the plane, the humidity difference from Canada and here is obvious...especially after being in an air conditioned plane for the past 9 hours!! We line up again to get our H1N1 medical sheets stamped and to get our baggage. As we passed through the line, we were scanned by a heat detector in order to make sure we didn’t have a fever...passed that test...thank god!! We pick up our baggage, head out the doors of the airport and are greeted by tons of taxi drivers and family members, all holding signs, here to pick up passengers. Overwhelmed, we decide to walk around and try to find our driver. Walk around once, but we can’t find him...walk around twice, and we finally find him!! He takes our bags and shows us the way to the car. As we’re walking over, a tout (of course we bump into one straight off the airplane!) is following us, talking in Hindi to the driver and trying to get him to find a way to get us to pay for him...he offers to carry our bags, opens the door to the car, rolls down the window, etc!! We get in the car as he is asking us for money but we firmly refuse and go on our way. We call Vaishali who tells me that she will call us on Monday to meet up with us for registration...great...no sleeping in I guess?!?
Being overwhelmed from actually finally being in India, we take in the sights and sounds from our taxi ride. About 2 hours in, our driver decides to stop at a food mall (Yan’s heaven I’m sure!) to get a coffee because he is getting tired! No wonder...he drove 4 hours to come pick us up at the airport and now, at midnight, he needs to drives another 4 hours back to Pune...where he also lives!! He grabs a coffee and we head back on the road, where I finally fall asleep. I wake up, about 30 minutes to destination and am told by Yan that our driver is falling asleep at the wheel!! GREAT!! Yan talks to him to try and keep him awake while contemplating how long it would take him to grab the wheel if he ever did fall asleep! Luckily, we make it to the hotel safe and sound at about 4 am!! Being excited again from actually being in India, we check into our room and take out the camera!! We chat till about 5:30 am at which point we both fall asleep after and exhausting journey!
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