Traveling Woman Blues

[S]he is truly wise who has traveled far and knows the ways of the world.

That’s a Hávamál Viking Proverb, and who should know more about world travel than Vikings, right? Those marauding, plundering, ravaging men of yore certainly had difficulties in their travel. Unknown territories, human resistance (weak though it was for the most part), storms at sea, carnivores on land. I’m sure the list goes on. What they did not have was airports. Our September 2016 retracing of Viking travels throughout the North Atlantic began with a mess-up of royal proportions in London and culminated in four airports in one day between Quebec and Charlotte. That was exhausting. However, nothing in that experience came close to airport travails in our holiday trip to Portugal and Spain in December 2016. A Blue Ribbon comes into play here.

Feel free to laugh at any time.

We’ve dealt with the Charlotte airport so many times it doesn’t hold surprises and little inconvenience. Check-in and security were a breeze, and we walked the concourses to get some exercise after the Black Mountain to Charlotte drive. We had plenty of time so we enjoyed the amenities of the club lounge before boarding for the long flight to London-Heathrow. Traveling Business Class gave dinner and breakfast, as well as a neat little toiletries bag for our convenience, so we arrived at Heathrow in a reasonably good frame of mind. That didn’t last.

We arrived at Terminal Three and went through security. Jim sailed through without hesitation. I, on the other hand, was pulled aside for the arms-over-the-head x-ray machine, wand, shoe inspection, and pat down. Now there was an experience. The woman kept pawing at my waist. I’ve traveled enough to know to dress as sleekly as possible, including no lace-up shoes and no belts. She kept digging and informed me there was something there. Yes, Ma’am, there was. The seam of my wide-elastic waistband. (BTW, ladies, if you haven’t tried this recent innovation in ladies’ trousers, you should. They are ultra-comfortable. But back to my woes.) She finally decided I wasn’t carrying an Uzzi concealed around my waist and sent me on my way.

To ease my frustrations over that encounter, we decided we would go to the club lounge for a while. We’re reasonable people; we ask questions, politely, of course. We showed our boarding passes clearly marked Priority and received the prompt information from an airport employee that we needed to be at Terminal Five because that’s where all flights to Lisbon originate. We decided to use our airline complimentary pass to the lounge on Three (not to be confused with our Priority access, which can happen only once per flight) before going to Five. After misdirection from two employees, we decided to go to Five, a 12-minute bus ride after we found the right place to board. There, we received the frustrating news that Lisbon flights originate at Three.

So, back to Three, and guess who was pulled aside again at security! I explained to this different woman, who thought I had probably taken a wrong turn. Anyway, she cut the pat down short and ignored my shoes after she checked something on the computer.

So ended my woes at Heathrow.

Our cruise on Portugal’s Douro River was enjoyable the first week, then, naturally, I got a head cold beginning with chest congestion and moving upward. So did many people on the riverboat, so I had company coughing, sneezing, and blowing. I wasn’t comfortable, but I soldiered on through the second week, which included the post-cruise days in Spain.

Alert! Airport woes again. Feel free to laugh from the comfort of your lounge chair.

We come now to our last night (December 31st) in Spain. For the record, we have traveled on New Year’s Eve and Day on several occasions with nary a problem. We were in Santiago, a large city, certainly large enough for an airport. We knew we were to fly out of Vigo to Madrid where we would board plane to JFK, that’s in New York, United States of America (long may she survive) for anyone who doesn’t know. We figured the Santiago airport was actually on the outskirts. Wrong. Vigo was an hour and ten minute ride in a crowded ten-passenger van through two road construction areas at FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING.

Vigo has a small airport, not crowded at that hour. Our pre-arranged flight information didn’t agree with the computer. We learned that the powers-that-be cancelled our Madrid to JFK flight and had changed our itinerary without our input. They booked Jim from Madrid to London to Charlotte. They booked me from Madrid to Chicago to New York to Charlotte. Jim kept his cool. I did not. I stated unequivocally there was no way, José, that I would travel, anywhere, anytime without my husband. Again, for the record, I have absolutely no sense of direction. None. I couldn’t have found my way from the Vigo ticket desk to the airplane without being tag-along-Tulu. As we stood at the ticket counter, debating the question (in their minds, not mine), a man came from the plane to ask why we were not boarding. Thereupon, airport personnel decided we would have to deal with American Airlines in Madrid, so to Madrid we went with no idea where we would go next.

After an hour and a half flight, we arrived at the Madrid airport. So, what happened? A woman in Security pulled me aside. I must surely look like a terrorist. For whatever reason, she only asked me to set my feet, one at a time, on a small x-ray box, then she sent me on my way.

As I said, feel free to laugh.

When we finally found the right place, we stood in the Priority line for two hours. We were the fourth in line, so that indicates the difficulty the airline rep had finding business flights for stranded people. She kept insisting that we should take the scheduled flights. We kept insisting we would not. She told us she had booked every seat on every flight through January 3rd and repeated we should take our scheduled flights. Jim told her (again) the airline didn’t matter, the routing didn’t matter, just get us two seats in Business on the same airplane, arriving eventually in Charlotte. When she finally stopped arguing, she needed about two minutes to book us on Iberia to Miami then American to Charlotte.

The Iberia ticket desk was directly behind American. There were no people in the Iberia line, so we sailed through, and had boarding passes in hand at 11:10, only to learn that the plane was to lift off at 11:50. In the meantime, we had to go to the lower level (several levels, in fact by escalator) to get the train to the correct terminal. Madrid airport didn’t have those trolleys that barge their way through crowds, horns blasting, while they transport passengers from one gate to another much faster than walking. So, we hot-footed a considerable distance through milling crowds to our gate. Only one person boarded after we did.

So, we were on the next leg of our journey home. Were our problems over? You gotta be kidding. Only a curtain separates the Business section from Coach. We had the seats next to the curtain. For the next nine hours, I listened to an infant cry just beyond the curtain, and a shrill-voiced toddler further back in Coach. Earplugs, which I used, were not sufficient.

Finally, we arrived in Miami. Passport control there requires we stand in front of a machine, punch in some information, and face the camera for the absolute worst picture in the history of photography. We stood in line for that. We stood in line for customs. We stood in line for Security. I held my breath. I didn’t get called aside. After all that standing, we still had to wait for our luggage, but, that, at least was progress toward getting me to a bed at the Quality Inn in Charlotte.

Dear readers, do I need to remind you that I was feverish, coughing, sneezing, and blowing?

Naturally, obtaining our boarding passes entailed standing in line at the ticket desk. There, we learned our pre-booked seats were not available—good old American Airlines had goofed some way—and we would have to wait another two hours for the next flight.

The Charlotte airport at nine o’clock at night is a breeze, and we only had to wait for our luggage. Our trusty shuttle van arrived promptly. I finally lay my exhausted bones in bed soon after ten o’clock.

Between Spanish time (six hours difference) and EST, we had been up 24 hours.

There you have a saga of traveling woman blues. Viking proverb aside, wisdom may dictate that it’s time for me to stop traveling.