I love traveling. Well, no. I hate flying. I hate the uncomfortable seats and the cramped legroom and the smell and the slight headache you get from the pressure. However, I do love layovers and airports. I love everything about them. I love the occasional panicked traveler running as fast as they can trying to make their flight. I love the people tucked away in random, out-of-the-way corners reading books and checking their email. I love the people trying desperately to make their backpacks into comfortable pillows so they can sleep at the gate. I love the variety of restaurants, where you can choose between a Big Mac and gourmet crabcakes. I love the million shops that sell the exact same thing every fifty feet and I love that you can find any magazine your little heart desires. I love the guys in full business suits sitting next to the teenager in a sweatsuit. I love duty-free. I love the trams and trains and shuttles that take you from one terminal to the next. Airports make me happy.
Anyway, it's a good thing I love airports so much, because otherwise my a) sitting on the runway for 45 minutes before leaving for the first leg of my flight and b) finding out the second leg of my flight was delayed three hours would have sucked. Now, I realize that three hours is not a long time, considering there are a full twenty-four of them in a day. However, when your flight is already a late flight, meaning you were originally supposed to get in at midnight, it really sucks to find out you won't even be leaving until 12:45 am.
Other than those minor debacles, the trip turned out pretty decently (oh, if you leave out the part where on two separate occasions I left first my wallet in the shuttle and then my phone in the hotel room. Both were recovered successfully.).
I had really no free time, so I didn't get to check out any of Montreal other than the offices I was visiting, but I was both intrigued and slightly disappointed to find that only one guy in the entire group had the stereotypical Canadian accent, eh? The rest had French accents. In retrospect I realize I should have expected that, but in my provincial thinking I didn't. Oh, but I did get to go to the retro 70s bar. Which was kind of kitschy and fun. I did not, however, find out what a chi-chi bar was.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
I Forgot to Add a Title, So Here It Is.
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18 comments:
Hey! I get to be the first comment even though I have nothing to say. Except that you seem like the kind of chick I'd end up next to on a flight; and think about years later based on our weird conversation, but who would never remember me except as maybe a smell.
I love airports. I love Montreal, too. Good thing my mom works for Delta; flying is a mild pain in the ass, but it beats full price!
Montrela is really all about the offices though, isn't it? I mean, I've been there and I can confidently say that have the BEST offices EVER!
Am I right? So really, you got the best of the city.
Chi-chi bars are never as chi-chi as they say they are.
What a shame.
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I work at an airport. I like watching the circus as well.
My personal fav - the irate passenger yelling at the hapless airline employee because of a weather delay.
Sounds like you had a blast. I love airports also. I don't even mind the flying bit.
Montreal is nice. And I also love traveling and flying. Airports, layovers, people etc. Nice article. Very descriptive..You write well...
Hate airports, hate flight attendants, hate layovers ... other than that, I like flying. More importantly, I like being somewhere new.
Welcome back.
My husband and I go to Montreal 2 or 3 times a year but haven't come across a 70's bar. What's the name of it? Do you remember what part of the city it was in? Montreal is a great city, you'll have to go back and visit when you can see more.
lori_ferland_lvf@yahoo.com
Denver is the best airport to be stuck in, LGA the worst.
If you want accent Toronto is the place to go.
Glad someone enjoys travel, I would rather shoot myself than get stuck at an airport
i remember when i went to canada everything about my flight out got jacked, from being on the wrong side of the airport to being stuck in security
ironically i was 20 min late for my flight and so was my flight so when i jumped the security gate i walked right onto the plane
My favorite part of the airport is when they wisk you away into a dark room. Snap the the wrist of the rubber glove and and perform a full cavity search on your being!
Ugh. Just imagining that horror makes me shiver.
Perhaps your thinking was not provincial enough . Or you thought of the wrong province.
We've got slight accents here. London is kind of a Canadian Indiana.
Airports are great. I get to go to an airport in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday. I won't actually get to go into the airport though. I am the person with the unfortunte task of dropping off my boyfriend (his ginormous dog and I will be seeing him and the rest of his fam off - hence why I can't go inside) while he jets off with his mom and sisters to Key West for a week. That's the part that totally sucks.
I am 6'4", so flying is never comfortable, unless I get the emergency row. Then, I am physically comfortable but I have added pressure of helping people put their oxygen masks on.
You have a good site here!
I never understood why people hated O'Hare, as I never had any trouble there until last weekend. My trouble on the way to Iowa from North Carolina worked in my favor, though...instead of flying to Cedar Rapids as scheduled (and delayed), I hopped standby on a flight to Des Moines (closer to home). On the way back, however, I was delayed for hours and nearly passed out when I went into a restaurant and paid as much for one Sam Adams as I did for an entire pizza!
And you bet your ass I downed a bunch of Leinenkugel and Boulevard while I was home in the Midwest! :-)
I have the worst luck traveling by plane. Road trips and trains are so much better for my sanity.
Flying is not my thing as well. I rather drive and see the world... that is after flying there first and then renting a car. :-)
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