Travel in the time of plague.
Lines, lines and more lines - the wild new world of international travel.
And just like that… I’m back.
International travel sure is exhausting these days, with extra layers of complication due to COVID.
The most useful thing a traveller can pack is lots of patience.
These days, it’s not optional. Especially with holiday season travel.
In the past two weeks, I estimate I’ve spent more than a dozen hours waiting on various lines - immigration lines, airport security lines, COVID testing lines, check in lines, taxi lines, baggage collection lines, train ticket lines, museum entry lines, and even lines to get on lines.
It was never much fun in the old days, but now it’s a real endurance test.
Sometimes the lines are very orderly and boredom is the worst enemy. At other times, joining the end of a long, slow queue that snakes out of sight can be nerve-wracking, especially if you have a flight to catch or an airport connection to make.
I’m one of those people who gets to the airport ridiculously early. Leaving Paris for the long trek back to Australia, I ordered a car to collect me at my hotel five and half hours ahead of my flight, calculating it may possibly take an hour to Charles de Gaulle airport.
Even for me, that’s excessive. But I’m glad I did.
The recommendation was to arrive four hours ahead of the flight, as there were extra controls and documents to check. I always build in more time in case of unforseen eventualities, such as the driver getting lost (which happened to me in Los Angeles) or me reading the day of departure incorrectly (which happened in Madrid, where I’d just settled in for a night at the beautiful Hotel Ritz when my airline texted me to say the check-in desk at the airport had opened for my imminent flight.)
In Paris, my car arrived early and the trip to the airport was swift, despite it being the first day of the school holidays. The driver checked with me that I was departing from Terminal 2E, which was what was written on my ticket.
I dragged my two rolling cases into the terminal. I had masses of time. I thought.
What greeted me were scenes of Biblical intensity, as if the whole of Paris were fleeing the plague with all their household possessions, shrink-wrapped. Which, in fact, they probably were.
Rivers of people flowed through the building. Well, I should say, clogged up the building, as they were as slow-moving as sludge. Where the lines were orderly, people just stood on them, going nowhere, looking defeated.
Where the lines were chaotic, it was like multiple rugby scrums playing different games on the same field.
I had no idea where the Emirates counter was, so I checked the notice board. I couldn’t see it. It mostly appeared to be Air France flights, but that didn’t bother me. Maybe it was a codeshare? I pushed my way through crowds to the quieter end of the terminal, and not seeing any Emirates signage, turned and set back in the opposite direction.
Hundreds of people blocked the pathway to these check-in counters. There appeared to be a delay to a flight to Ghana. Beautiful Africans in coloured cottons swarmed around an airport official. The poor guy was doing his best to help the stranded passengers. I snuck in my own question: where was the Emirates counter? He consulted his phone. That would be in terminal 2C he said.
Terminal 2C was in the other direction, reached by elevator at the far end of the building. I had to push my way back through the scrums, dragging my luggage, irritating everyone by going the wrong way through the throng. This took a very long time.
Then I had to take an elevator down to the next level, drag my luggage to the far end of that terminal, pass through security, find the Emirates check in - and join another line.
That wasn’t too bad, as it turned out. My spirits lifted - until I went down an escalator to the immigration hall and was confronted by the longest line of all, hundreds of people, all in an enclosed space, many wearing their masks under their noses, shuffling along wearily, to be processed by just four immigration officers. It took about an hour.
Question: why is is mostly MEN who wear their masks under their noses? Just an observation.
It was a hot house for breeding Omicron, I was convinced. I took a second mask out of carry-on and put it over my first. Not for the first time, I wished I had brought with me one of those stick seats that birdwatchers carry.
After my passport was finally stamped, I faced a slow-moving security line. And the boarding line, when the time came. There were more boarding lines and security lines in Dubai.
The worst line of all was waiting for the doors to open on our A380 when we arrived in Sydney. There was a long delay because it seemed there was no-one at Sydney airport to drive the gates, so we all stood in the aisles, so desperate to get off but going nowhere - Aussies returning home after long absences, and many, many international students on visas who had been waiting two years to get there.
I won’t talk about the line I had to join the next morning to get my mandatory PCR test.
This is exhausting, isn’t it? Much more exhausting to read than stories about Paris hotels and Left Bank bistros. (More of this to come next time.) But it’s the reality of travel nowadays.
Systems are strained due to COVID, people are irritable and stressed, and while there might be a lot of joy when you reach your destination, getting there makes you question if that reward is worth it.
And that’s a good flight, with no delays or unexpected complications. Everyone was doing the best they could. I didn’t witness any US-style passenger meltdowns.
My verdict: It’s worth it.
That’s what I think about when I’m on line. I could be spending yet another night in front of the TV watching a crime show. Or I could be in Cannes and Paris. It’s not as if I have to spend six months in the bowels of an 18th Century sailing ship to get there. I’m not aged or unfit or differently abled. All this standing would be much tougher if I were.
There’s a restaurant in Los Angeles that asks every patron to say what they are grateful for before they take their seats. It’s incredibly annoying and pretentious. But when in line I focus on what I might say when they asked me.
I’m grateful to even be here.
For everyone joining lines this Christmas - I salute you.
May they all be short and move quickly.
Thank you, XX's
Love reading all your stories Lee, Merry Christmas!