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It’s Wednesday now and we’re getting closer to our Friday departure and the days seem to be simultaneously crawling by and passing far too quickly. Marie is basically packed. I have piled most of my stuff on the floor along with my pack and have sort of thought about where things will go in my pack. We have bought some euros… And we’ve started taking care of all the little details… like making arrangements for Bear… taking care of the house… that sort of thing… but there’s still a lot to do… It really is true what they say about familiarity breeding contempt. I was packed and ready to go a week before our first trip… now I’ll probably do most of my packing on Friday morning.
In any case, the first leg of our family travels is successfully under way with Caitlin having left for England on Saturday and arrived safely on Sunday… She flew the same flights from Vancouver to Newark and Newark to Lisbon that we will be flying on our way to Madrid in a few days so we were watching her travels pretty closely… She survived… It did not go exactly as advertised…
Getting to the airport went pretty smoothly. She’d booked a taxi to take her directly to the airport instead of having to take transit some/all of the way (thank you Mom!). This allowed her to sleep in a little… if you call getting up at 5am sleeping in that is… Apparently she doesn’t… As proof that Christmas miracles really can happen, though, her driver actually showed up and was not at all cranky or miserable that she would be using a credit card instead of paying with cash! He even asked her if she had a preferred route that she wanted him to take or if it was okay to just follow the GPS route. None of this ever happens when getting cabs in Burnaby. Things were off to a good start…
Getting through security and pre-clearing US Customs went off without a hitch and she was soon hanging out at the gate waiting for her 8:45am flight to board. It was approximately 6:30am… She was not amused… Thankfully (for the rest of humanity that is) there was Tim’s. Caffeinated and fed, it wasn’t long before it was time to board.
The flight from Vancouver to Newark passed pretty uneventfully. No air marshals were needed. No international incidents occurred. This is pretty remarkable considering that the cattle… I mean passengers… were neither fed nor provided free booze during their approximately 6 hour flight. If you have ever flown for more than 17 minutes with Caitlin when she is not provided with food and/or booze – especially booze – you will know that successful completion of such a journey is not at all guaranteed.
On landing in Newark things got a bit interesting. Our flights include a whopping 1 hour and 19 minute layover in Newark – where we need to change airlines (from Air Canada to TAP) and terminals. We have been assured by the powers that be that this is enough time and that it will all go smoothly. It did work out but smoothly is not the word Caitlin used to describe it…
First was the Air Canada staffer Caitlin approached for directions… Their interaction went something like this. “Hi. Can you tell me where I’m supposed to go to catch my next flight.” Hands over boarding pass. “This is the wrong boarding pass!” says the staffer. “Oh. Are you sure? Isn’t it the one for Newark to Lisbon?” asks Caitlin. “Yes” replies the staffer… but it’s not a friendly, ‘I’m happy to help you’ sort of yes but more of a ‘you’re a fecking eejit for wasting my time‘ sort of yes… “So that is my boarding pass for my Newark to Lisbon flight?” says Caitlin. “Yes!!” replies the Air Canada staffer.. “Well isn’t this Newark?” asks Caitlin… genuinely puzzled now… “Oh yeah… It is… I have no idea what gate you will be at. Go over there!” replies the staffer while waving vaguely in the general direction of nothing in particular. I am genuinely amazed that in her food and booze deprived state, Caitlin did not bludgeon the hapless staffer with the ridiculously overstuffed tote bag she’s lugging around because the new carry-on sized travel pack she’s trialing isn’t so great when you’re bringing rain boots… I do not know why Caitlin is bringing rain boots… but there are many things I do not know and I’ve learned not to ask too many questions…
Next up was the dedicated team of people making sure that passengers making connections between Star Alliance airlines at Newark actually make their connections. Despite all the online references to the existence of this team, there was no such team… Perhaps they are more of a stealthy ninja-like team of shadowing connection-making wizards that only materializes when you have even less time to make connections than Caitlin did… This must also be the case with the apparently magical shuttle for transporting Star Alliance passengers between terminals without their having to exit the security-screened side of the terminal… It did not materialize either… So it was on to the regular Air Tram or Air Train line or whatever other Disneyesque name they’ve given the glorified cattle… errrr… people mover in use at Newark. This also meant leaving the “I’ve already been through security” side of the terminal… thereby necessitating a trip back through security screening on arrival at the new terminal.
I will not repeat the exact words Caitlin used to describe the state of the security screening line to get into Terminal B as this is a family blog. Suffice to say it was busy. Very, very busy. Apparently some passengers got special stickers to hustle them through security screening more quickly. Despite having less than 30 minutes to pass through security and find her gate, Caitlin did not get one of those stickers… After a few composed but frustrated text messages Caitlin, though, was waved into a shorter security screening line… To be honesty, Caitlin is a pretty calm, cool and collected traveller and even without coffee, food or free booze it would take more than a chaotic airport screening line to really rattle her… but that doesn’t make for good stories so I’m taking a fair bit of artistic license here… With Caitlin’s state of mind… The lack of anything remotely resembling efficiency is being faithfully reported…
Once in the shorter line Caitlin promptly discovered that she needed to remove any food from her bag so it could be inspected by security… Something we’ve never had to do before…. Ever… I’m sure it makes sense to someone, somewhere… Because trail mix can bring down a plane? Or maybe they’re worried about duty free M&Ms taking an eye out… Who knows… Whatever the rationale, we’ve learned it’s better to just nod and smile and comply with whatever ridiculously bureaucratic directions you’re given by the screeners… After all, they are probably having a much worse day than you… even after your food and booze deprived six hour Air Canada flight…
But this particular screener was obviously suicidal as they decided that Caitlin’s bag should be flagged for secondary screening… and remember… by this point Caitlin’s flight is supposed to leave in less than 20 minutes… The conversation went something like this: “Do you have any idea what this is at the bottom of your pack that has zippers?” to which Caitlin’s curt but efficient response was “Really? I packed two days ago at 1am… So no… I don’t really know… but maybe it’s a… coat…” After what must have been one of those totally profound moments of self-reflection where you consider the totality of your life and wonder if there is any point in going on, the screener decided it was worth living for another day… and passed Caitlin through without actually opening her bag or pressing for any further details about the zippered instrument of destruction lurking at the bottom of Caitlin’s pack… A few minutes later Caitlin found her way to the correct gate only to learn that the flight must have been delayed because it was just starting to board when she arrived…
At this point Caitlin’s state of mind can probably best be summarized by the text she sent to me just before boarding: “Hope I get wine… as soon as I sit…” She also let us know that Marie will probably need to collect her checked bag on landing in Newark… thereby leaving us with the prospect of taking a train from one terminal to another, collecting one checked bag, clearing customs, rechecking said checked bag, going through security again, finding the gate and peeing in under one hour and 19 minutes. Those Star Alliance ninjas better be prepared to kick into high gear when Marie and I arrive in Newark because no amount of coffee, airline food or free booze will save them from Marie’s wrath in the event that she misses her flight because of systemic incompetence. If you hear nothing more from us after Saturday you will know that things did not go well and that I’m busy trying to arrange bail for Marie…
The rest of Caitlin’s journey to Leicester (pronounced Lester for those of you who still think the English language makes any sense at all) passed pretty smoothly. There was food and booze on the flight to Lisbon. But apparently you have to clear security screening – that makes it an even three times – after landing in Lisbon before heading for the departure gates for European destinations. Caitlin didn’t say whether they fed and watered her on the flight from Lisbon to Gatwick but it was a comparatively short flight so probably wasn’t a big deal. On landing in London, Caitlin did note that she did not receive a stamp in her passport in Lisbon or London… for the experienced travellers out there you know there’s nothing sadder than a passport that isn’t filled with stamps so this is actually a bit of a big deal… The details of this part of Caitlin’s journey are a bit hazy for me because it was well after 1am our time by this point and my responses to her WhatsApp messages keeping us informed of her travels basically consisted of thumbs up emojis… There was a train from Gatwick to Leicester. And walking… I think her pack was not very comfortable… But she made it… a little over 24 hours after she left her place in Burnaby…
In all, the reasonably priced tickets we’ve found for this trip definitely come with a price in terms of travel time…as what would normally be a 9 hour direct flight to London ended up taking more than 20 hours… But I guess that’s the price you pay when you decide six weeks before your departure date that Christmas in Europe could be fun… And in the end, it all worked out… so Marie and I are cautiously optimistic everything will go as “smoothly” as it did for Caitlin and that we’ll be sipping sangria and eating tapas in Madrid in just a few more days… Stay tuned…
