I beg to
differ from William Shakespeare, it is not misery that acquaints us with
strange bedfellows; it is travel, air travel to be exact.
Waiting at
the gate in Dublin for my flight to Frankfurt, I take stock of my fellow
voyagers. There are the hikers, struggling under the weight of bulging
backpacks and bumping into everyone, there are the seasoned ones, who have done it all
before and who remain calm and collected. And there
are the get-the-best tourists, as I call them. The ones who keep a hawk eye out for
any movement that suggests we might be boarding soon. As soon as the airline
clerk appears, they are off at a gallop to stand in the queue, waving boarding
cards and straining to get on board before everyone else.
Once on board, you get the “stow your hand luggage brigade”. You stand patiently waiting in the
aircraft aisle to get past and claim your seat in the hope that the overhead
locker isn’t going to crumble under the weight of what has already been forced
in there. But just when you are about to ease past, they suddenly remember that
they need something out of that backpack and so haul it back down, narrowly
avoiding your head. Then, it’s rummage time, because whatever they are looking
for, it’s going to be down at the bottom of that capacious bag. Behind you a
few passengers murmur politely in protest and blame the delay on you.
Finally,
you are seated and you have found a niche for your carry on bag – not without
difficulty and quite a bit away from your seat, but hey, who wants to be
difficult? Now you can relax and watch the safety drill and fasten your seat
belt. Once airborne, you’ll notice “the bouncer”: the passenger in the seat in
front of you who tries very hard to convert his seat into a day bed (sorry, but it is usually a male in my experience). Any minute
now you feel that his head is going to land in your lap.
If you are
unlucky enough to have handed in your luggage to be stowed, you will experience
the adventure of the luggage carousel and the “is this my suitcase?” brigade. A
friend of mine recounts seeing a man walking off with her suitcase, even though
it had a huge pink ribbon attached to the handles so that she could identify it
more easily. When accosted, he looked very annoyed. “Where’s my suitcase,
then?” he bellowed at her. She almost surrendered her piece of luggage to him
in sheer fright.
Should you
decide to have a snack and a coffee/tea, you will discover that, if you are
sitting in the aisle seat (as I usually am), the passenger in the window seat
will choose the exact moment you get your steaming cup of beverage to decide he/she needs to visit the toilet. Then comes the excitement of folding up the little table while balancing your hot cup of tea/coffee and trying not to spill anything as they push past.
Just when I think I should stop smiling politely and show a touch of exasperation, I remind myself that it is our
fellow passengers who make travelling such a unique experience, one I wouldn’t
miss for the world.
Bon Voyage!
