The day started off so French. I got up, picked up my laundry, finished packing my bag checked out of my hotel (10 am checkout) and headed into the center of town – to a cafe right near the airport bus stop. Buses from Cannes to the Nice Airport leave every half hour on the dot, and I bought a roundtrip ticket, so I just needed to drag my stuff from the cafe to the bus stop about 100 feet away and I was good to go.
I did my Cannes thing. I hung out at the cafe, did my work, had some lunch and killed a little time on the Internet until it was time to drag my 55 pounds of backpacks to the bus.
I was the only passenger for that run, so I had my own private bus. I watched the scenery roll by and had my little nostalgia for France moment. As we left Cannes and passed by several laundries, I thought, “But who will do my laundry??!! No one will ever do it as well until Bali!”
Laundry is actually a constant quiet fear of mine. I’ve never been anywhere I couldn’t get it done – but there are some big differences in convenience and quality. When I lived in Bangkok, the white shirts used to come back with the occasional sooty streak because they hang laundry and the air is so polluted. Bali, on the other hand, makes the laundry come back smelling like I didn’t know laundry could smell and everything is ironed – right down to underwear. When I left Bali, I actually waited months to wear the last pieces of Bali-laundered clothing because I wanted to hang on to the smell.
Istanbul just doesn’t strike me as laundry-promising. And I know Nepal isn’t….
The Nice airport is very nice and about Burbank size. It was a breeze to get through, though the Air France ticket counter lady seemed stressed. When I asked her if it had been busy, she said no. I asked was it a hard day? She said it’s a very stressful day with the strikes and the situation in Paris with the fuel being cut off to DeGaulle and Orly airports. I asked if that was affecting Nice (because you would have thought this ticket counter woman was overworked and overwhelmed by the crisis). No, not at all…we’re fine here.
But clearly, the unions have pushed things into national crisis. Yesterday, they shut down several oil refineries and cut off the fuel pipelines to Paris’ two major airports. Sarkozy then ordered riot police to re-open the fuel pipeline and get at least a couple of refineries up and running. He succeeded without any real opposition, but then the unions shut down several more refineries in other parts of the country. Sarkozy has vowed that pension reform will and must happen and that he won’t capitulate.
Cutting of the fuel to one of the world’s major airports (DeGaulle) is shocking. Without fuel pipeline restoration, the airport had enough fuel to make it only through the weekend – maybe a little beyond… Flights between Nice and Paris were delayed and some cancelled. Two things are for sure – France is in a state of crisis and so is the lady who checked in my baggage.
The Nice Airport was great, calm, organized, well-resourced – it was all very French and happy.
Then it happened.
Alitalia was late getting in. And they took their time turning the plane around for my flight – probably because they’re Italian and everyone needed a smoke break and coffee. My scheduled connection time in Rome – 1 hour, 10 minutes. Big airport. TIGHT.
As it was time to board, things turned Italian. Alitalia doesn’t announce boarding – everyone just swells round the gate and when the ground staffing start scanning boarding passes (or Cartes D’Embarquement), it’s like being in a group of Italian soccer fans. Boarding is…enthusiastic and any observer knows it’s time.
Onboard, I asked a flight attendant if I would make my connection given the delay. He said, “Sure, no problem!” like a man who doesn’t give a shit. I asked, “Really?!” He asked for the flight number and said he’d check on the flight status of my connecting flight and get back to me. That never happened. So, when I was getting off the plane in Rome, I told the flight attendant in front my connecting flight number and asked if he can let the other flight know I’m coming. He said, “They already know…”
I know from past experience with a British Airways connection in Heathrow that’s code for “You’re on your own. Good luck!”
To make matters worse, Rome doesn’t use many jetways. You get off on the tarmac and buses take you to the terminal. And they don’t move the buses as they fill, they wait until EVERYONE on the flight is on a bus. Buses take 5-10 minutes to reach the terminal. As the bus started moving, I had 40 minutes until flight time. As the bus door opened, I jumped out and started running.
My flight wasn’t listed on the departure board. I asked an Alitalia representative at the first gate I can to where to find my flight.
“It’s at gate G6 and they just started boarding. Go up there, turn left – and I would go quickly, because you don’t have much time…” I was at gate B1.
I ran. Rome is a HUGE airport and I knew this from my tight connection before when I had 1:20 to make my connection and made it just in time for boarding. I had a sense of how far I had to go, and sprinting was my only real solution.
Oddly, not only did a man running through the airport with a big backpack not phase too many people, but I wasn’t the only person who was running somewhere. People were pretty nice about letting me through.
My shins began to hurt. I wasn’t wearing my sandals or running shoes. My nice, black Kenneth Cole’s were great for Cannes, but bad for running through Rome. I knew these cramps from other sprints through airports on work trips. Something about that kind of shoes kills my shins.
Then I heard my backpack straps start to rip. They had sustained minor damage from the backpack being heavily loaded in previous flights – but me running at full speed and it at full capacity, made it bounce up and down, tearing the pack at the seams.
I slowed down. Things weren’t looking good. How could I get across this airport in enough time to make this flight? Even if I made it within five minutes of flight time, they’d probably have shut the gate and told me it was too late like when I ran through Heathrow to make my connection to Paris in 2007. The British Airways’ flight crew showed up for my LAX-LHR flight two hours after departure time, having taken the wrong bus from their LAX Hotel and somehow going to Long Beach….
I had 25 minutes. On the flight I had already thought about what would happen if this connection wasn’t possible. Emily wouldn’t reach Istanbul until the next night and I had nowhere I had to be until then. I could get a flight the next night and get in a little after her if worse came to worse…
Then I thought, “If you don’t want to get stuck in Rome overnight, you’re going to have to run!” I thought about Emily. I thought that if I miss this flight, I want to show up at that gate sweaty and irate so the airline has to do right by me. Then I thought of Shakira.
“Waka Waka” plays all the time in most of the cafes I’ve worked in both in Greece and France. The Europeans love the World Cup and they love that song.
I thought, “Y vamos por Todo!”
I whipped my backpack off my back, wrapped my arms around it and returned to full sprint until I reached the split-off for G and H gates. I actually nearly ran one man down. I felt a little bad about that. He looked scared. But in my head, I heard “People are raising their Expectations, go on and feed them, this is your moment, no hesitations…Today’s your day, I feel it, you paved the way, believe it…” So I kept running as if that airport was my own personal World Cup.
Then I hit the Passport Control. The Rome airport is divided into the “EU Flights” section and the “Non-EU Flights” section. I went from Nice to Rome, so I was in the EU section. In order to leave the EU, I had to stamp out. I ran up to the “Special Needs” line lady and begged, all sweaty. I told her my flight in was late and my flight out was boarding. Could I use the Special Needs lane? I wasn’t that special…no go.
I got in the passport line and watched to see who was the best stamper. I put my bets on the fast lady on the far left and she was indeed the right choice. I’m not sure she even scanned my passport – she saw United States and stamped me. She also saw sweat and was right next to the Special Needs line where I had begged.
I had 18 minutes. The sign said G gates to the right. I ran. I passed people, I ran up an escalator and smack into a train terminal. The G gates were accessible only by train and I had to wait for the next one. When it finally came people were standing around confused about whether it was the right train or not. I was on the train but some people were standing in the train doors hesitant. I didn’t have time for this.
“G Gates, here!” I yelled and the crowd got on.
When those train doors opened on the other side, I ran. The G terminal was literally like a slalom. paths branched off left and right – G1 and G2, curve left then G-3 and G-3, path to the right. I swerved along the curved paths hoping to make a goal…. G6 and two people, the LAST people were boarding.
I was a mess, but I was there. The girls at the gate thought it was pretty funny. I elatedly walked down that stairwell to the last bus to the plane with just a minute to spare. I had won the World Cup of the Rome Airport. And was rewarded by an exit row seat so I could stretch out and enjoy my victory in comfort.
“Tsamina mina eh eh, Waka Waka eh eh, Tsamina mina zangalewa. This time for Istanbul!”
RIP Black Backpack Bought In A Supermarket In Ubud, Bali for $10
(2005-2010)
2:30 am – Istanbul hotel room
Sent from my iPad
