Contrasts of Scandinavia and Russia
Day Twelve – 3 June 2010
Weather: All over the map, like me.
Woah! Two o’clock in the morning comes awfully quick.
Never mind walking like an Egyptian. I’m walking like a Zombie.
I was up and out in 15 minutes. My transfer arrived on time – a young guy that didn’t seem happy at the prospect of being up at 3 am any more than I was.
But he did manage to make my taxi ride to the airport in Israel seem like a Sunday drive. I was told the airport was an hour and a half away. I’m guessing they were talking about the drive with traffic.
Well, without the traffic and with Ivan the Terrible at the wheel, I was there in 40 minutes. He did up to 160 km on a rutted secondary road in the pouring rain. The car would sway as though the lug nuts on the tires were coming loose. I left imprints of my fingers in the seat. I couldn’t say anything to him as he was flying down the road. I didn’t want to distract him at that speed. I just watched, hoped that a car wouldn’t pull out of a driveway and counted my heart beats until I saw the lights of DME in the distance.
Trafalgar should have a chat with their transfers. I don’t mind 120, even 130 kph.
160 at night on a rutted highway in the pouring rain was downright traumatic.
Yeah. My seat belt was on tight.
The airport is pretty busy for 3:30 am. I found the Lufthansa agent and she tried to get my second bag on for free because of my air miles level, but was denied.
Remember the $50 I spent on the Voices optional?
What gets me now is that the weight of the two combined might have been 24 kg and probably would have went on without a problem if I had combined them.
Oh well. Easy come, easy go.
The security at DME Moscow airport has the new body scanner. The attendant handed me a plastic bin labeled “Shoes.”
So, I took off my shoes and put them in the bin. Then she handed me plastic booties to put on my feet. I sat down to put them on and looked at her.
Then she handed me a plastic bin labeled “Clothes.”
Well, I don’t want to get home *that* bad.
The lady read my face and just pointed to my jacket.
I it through the scanner then stepped into the transporter. Scotty gave me a nod and the vertical bar swung around the transporter pretty quick. Scotty nodded and I collected my shoes and “clothes.”
The signage in the Moscow airport is easy to follow in English, but there are like 10 chairs for the entire gate. The plane left a couple minutes early and I got a very short nap in. When your neighbour on a flight is sleeping, don’t wake them for the meal!
To make matters worse, the pollen and pollution in Moscow played havoc with my allergies and my throat was sore with a dry cough. I passed on breakfast and tried to sleep as much as possible. I probably got an hour.
The landing in Munich was a lot like I expect at home. In the fog and rain.
The airport is very nice!
Unlike Frankfurt, which is like a puzzle missing pieces, Munich is straight forward and the signage is very clear. The departure area has a lot of shops. My wait was five hours so the departure gate wasn’t listed but the woman at the security point knew mine would leave from H level. I doubled checked with the Lufthansa information desk and got my gate number.
Then I went shopping. I’ve been to Munich before. Now I have the fridge magnet.
I also found a pharmacy and got some spray for my throat. Hopefully, it’s enough to keep the cough down so that everyone sitting around me on the 9 hour flight doesn’t think I have a new strain of H1N1.
Once again, my Air Canada flight was on time, departing just after noon. I turned my watch back to Toronto time just so I could relive the whole morning again – minus the taxi ride from hell.
At this point, I have had less than three hours of sleep in about 32 hours. Which probably explains my odd perception of the guy sitting in the seat next to me.
I do always seem to have some sort of adventure on these trans-Atlantic flights, don’t I?
Well, this was a doozy. I was absolutely convinced the guy next to me was a terrorist. He was tall, skinny, tanned skin and had an accent I couldn’t quite pin point. He sat stiff as a board and had a knapsack he wouldn’t put up in the overhead because it had “precious” things in there. He had a watch on both wrists and checked them constantly.
I mean constantly. Every 30 seconds constantly.
When the in-seat video came on, he asked me how to get to the maps. Once he figured that out, he asked me which one shows our flight path.
Then he asked me where the half-way point over the ocean was.
Okay, my sleep deprived mind started going into overdrive.
I went to the washroom and when I came back, he had headphones, so I thought great, he’s gonna watch some movies. Then he asks me why he can’t hear anything while watching the maps.
What would one hear while watching maps, I wondered?
I told him there was no sound with the maps, so he pulls off the earphones as if disgusted that there wasn’t a voice telling him where the halfway point over the Atlantic is.
Then they served dinner. He said he was vegetarian but they didn’t have a meal for him as it wasn’t requested. He said he’d take the chicken as long as it didn’t have pork, because he couldn’t eat pork.
Well. So much for getting any sleep.
I tried to chat him up, but he was a one answer type guy. He never asked me anything about me, but asked about turbulence and engine sounds.
Eventually, I got enough out of him to figure out that he was just a very very nervous flyer. He was Dutch and even had a sandwich made for him by his mother. He was going to Canada to visit his brother. Of course, we were getting close to Toronto by now and I had avoided sleeping cause I simply did not know one way or the other and didn’t want to be asleep if he decided to haul out the ‘precious things’ in his bag.
He got upset when his map screen froze a few kilometres from the airport. Luckily, the flight was incredibly smooth. Otherwise, I think he would have had a stroke before the halfway point.
Well, one of us would have.
One real bizarre dude.
I got into Toronto in one piece like all 200+ people on the plane, and once again, walked through customs without a problem. By now, it has been about 42 hours with those three hours of sleep and I’m ready to fall into a coma. Then I realize that the seats in Toronto have armrests.
Argh!
I found some decongestant and cough syrup and by the time I boarded the flight for Newfoundland, I was breathing more normally. I fell asleep as soon as we took off, woke once to look at my watch then woke to the captain telling us we were coming in for a landing.
Definitely the shortest 2 1/2 hour flight I’ve ever taken.
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