Why I haven't been posting/answering email/breathing.
Because, come tomorrow morning, we'll have been trying and failing to get a flight home for five days. The spectacular incompetence of London Heathrow airport was the problem for the first three days, but today the problem was the less-spectacular but more-viscerally-infuriating incompetence of Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Heathrow has at least been browbeat into admitting that they screwed up, but the CDG staff I dealt with today absolutely refused to acknowledge any responsibility. I hope I don't run into any of them again tomorrow; I just don't think I could keep my temper around them.
I'm seriously considering giving up flying for good. I don't know how I'd get to Japan again in the future, but I'm having anxiety dreams and waking up in a panic. I felt like I was going to throw up all morning. I can't keep doing this.
On the plus side, it's nice to know the English media's actually on the right side of this fight; American news agencies tend to behave a little as if you're asking to be abused when you fly, but these guys are absolutely letting Heathrow have it. A guy interviewing the head of the airport politely asked him if he didn't think resignation was appropriate, given that the lanes only just got cleared three days after the last snow of note. (Dad, sitting next to me as he watched this, cheered loudly.)
They were also doing a lot of little interviews with stranded people, choosing the politest, sweetest, and most painfully shell-shocked individuals they could find. Small children with dark circles under their eyes were a bonus. As we were heading back to Heathrow for what turned out to be the last time yesterday,
thegeekgene and I prepared and rehearsed a short skit, should someone break formula and choose to interview us.
Me: The problem is that they won't give us any information. I mean, I asked that guy over there earlier what was going on, and he said that the airport had been built over a Hellmouth, and they were waiting for the Slayer, but she's stuck in Amsterdam. But she asked someone else, and he said - what did he say?
thegeekgene: They just told me it was Daleks.
Me: I mean, they're just not keeping the flow of information going here.
(Okay, so I obviously prepared most of this conversation. My sibling was not as enthusiastic as I would liked about keeping the UK informed.)
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I'm seriously considering giving up flying for good. I don't know how I'd get to Japan again in the future, but I'm having anxiety dreams and waking up in a panic. I felt like I was going to throw up all morning. I can't keep doing this.
On the plus side, it's nice to know the English media's actually on the right side of this fight; American news agencies tend to behave a little as if you're asking to be abused when you fly, but these guys are absolutely letting Heathrow have it. A guy interviewing the head of the airport politely asked him if he didn't think resignation was appropriate, given that the lanes only just got cleared three days after the last snow of note. (Dad, sitting next to me as he watched this, cheered loudly.)
They were also doing a lot of little interviews with stranded people, choosing the politest, sweetest, and most painfully shell-shocked individuals they could find. Small children with dark circles under their eyes were a bonus. As we were heading back to Heathrow for what turned out to be the last time yesterday,
thegeekgene and I prepared and rehearsed a short skit, should someone break formula and choose to interview us.
Me: The problem is that they won't give us any information. I mean, I asked that guy over there earlier what was going on, and he said that the airport had been built over a Hellmouth, and they were waiting for the Slayer, but she's stuck in Amsterdam. But she asked someone else, and he said - what did he say?
thegeekgene: They just told me it was Daleks.
Me: I mean, they're just not keeping the flow of information going here.
(Okay, so I obviously prepared most of this conversation. My sibling was not as enthusiastic as I would liked about keeping the UK informed.)
This post was cross-posted from Dreamwidth. Please comment there using OpenID. (Comments:
)