France 2004: Part 3: Arrival In Paris
L’Aeroport Charles de Gaulle is confusing as hell. Especially after over 30 hours of travel.
We were supposed to be met at the airport by an STS France representative. Upon descending from the plane, we looked around, to see no one. Of course, it never occurred to us that there was no way that they’d be able to get in this far, we had not even picked up our baggage yet. Only passengers and Airline staff could possible be in that lounge…
Like most huge airports, it had awesome flat escalators, to help you ‘walk’ the long distances between terminals and the baggage claim areas. They are actually quite fun, although we weren’t really in the mood at that point. The stress of being in a huge foreign airport, hardly understanding the spoken language was getting to us.
We waited quite a while for our bags. We checked and double checked that we were in the right place. Triple checked. Waited some more. Quadruple checked. Walked around the terminal a bit. Whatever-the-fifth-time-is-called-ple checked. Finally a German dude I recognised from the plane got his bag. They slowly came out. Kitty’s bag was broken. As was mine. Not impressed. Inside were little pieces of paper saying that out bags had been physically opened and searched in LA. Lovely.
We had our bags. Where to next? We had no idea. Obviously there must be a way out. I mean, people were somehow leaving. There was a distinct lack of people standing around with bags. There must be some trick that they all know and we don’t. We made a few more tours of the terminal, looking for a way out. The way we came wasn’t possible, it was a one way escalator. We asked a few people, and were pointed in a few different directions, most likely because of our french being misunderstood for something like “Where are the toilets?” or “From where can I throw myself out a window to get out of this horribly designed airport thingy?”. Finally, we found the rarest of all treasures, an airport employee who spoke english. Suddenly everything fell into place.
Customs. We had to go through customs.
Which was hidden away in plain sight.
Customs was a breeze. No checks, just walked straight through. Suddenly, there were people everywhere. Screaming, yelling, photos being taken. Clamouring to get a sight of us. Well, not us per se, more everyone was trying to see, and greeting, the people they knew coming out. The poor lady from STS who had been waiting all the time as we circled in the Airport came and greeted us. In french. And told us flat out that she refused to speak English with us. Lovely.
Next thing you know, Kitty and I are bundled into a Taxi, zooming down the French motorway at 150kph, on the wrong side of the road, with a driver we can’t talk to.
Oh fun.
August 3, 2005 | Filed Under
Classic,
La France |
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Jordan and Lukas turned up at around 5pm last night, they were in Wellington for some conference. Armed with company credit cards, they were looking for a night on the piss.
If it was on Link, I said, of course!
We started off by getting a few bottles of red wine and some cheese, to drink in a refined manner, while waiting for a couple of others to arrive. Jordan also grabbed a dozen beer for later.
Bryan and Sam turned up at about the same time, both sporting a nice supply of alcohol, so we were pretty much set for the night. Once we moved onto the beer, we were all rather tipsy. At this stage, it’s amazing just what can happen, how your reactions are dulled. Lukas’s beer overflowed after being knocked by Jordan; instead of guzzling it down as etiquette required, he watched it pour out onto the table. I, on the other hand, somehow lost my grip on my beer, and watched it fall, and empty itself on the ground.
I ignored the calls for a floorsuck, that floor has not been washed in months.
We headed into town at about half-ten, really quite early. But surprisingly, the clubs were packed. We headed for Jet, and set about dancing. Jordan was at his ’silly’ stage, and was amusing himself by jumping as high as possible. Sam and I joined in, huge, idiotic grins on our faces.
Suddenly, I felt a crushing blow to my head. I could figure out what had happened. I was in serious pain. I looked around, and realised I had jumped up into a ledge of some kind. Fuck, that hurt.
Still, I realised no one else had noticed, so tried to ignore the pain and kept on dancing, trying to force myself to smile, but it came out more as a grimace.
I felt something running down the side of my face. What the fuck? I thought someone must have spilt their drink on me or something. I put my hand to my hair, and pulled it back, red.
Oh my god.
I put my other hand on my head, just to be sure. Holy shit.
I turned to Danny. He looked down at my hands. Dude, what? I know. Fuck, I gotta get to the bathroom.
I closed my hands, and quickly made my way through the crowds towards the bathroom, praying that no one would see the blood dripping down the side of my face. Luckily, it was hidden by my beard, and the club was dark.
I got the the toilets, and grabbed a bundle of paper-towels, holding them over my head. They came back covered in blood. I couldn’t believe it. I went through almost all of the paper towels in there. By this time, word had spread among my friends that I was in the toilets with a split-open head. They couldn’t believe it. Jordan, of course, thought it was the funniest thing in the world.
Finally, the bleeding slowed down a bit. I cleaned my hear up, hoping that the dark would hide the slight-reddish tinge. I washed the blood off my hands, and wiped it off the side of my face.
Sam, trained in St Johns as he is, inspected my head and said that it’d be ok, so I returned to the dancefloor. My head hurt like shit, but dance I would.
I periodically checked my hair for signs of fresh blood, there was some, but not much. About 20 minutes after coming back to the dancefloor, I realised that I had some caked blood in my beard. Lovely. So nice of everyone not to tell me.
Despite this obvious crap start to the night, it turned out to be quite fun. My head ached for the entire time, but we played a bit of pool, went to a karaoke bar (No, we didn’t sing) and finally returned to Jet for a few more drinks.
We grabbed a taxi back here just after 3am, myself fairly sober, so able to give directions.
My head was still hurting pretty bad, so I thought to be safe I’d put a towel on my pillow in case I was still bleeding.
I woke up in the middle of the night, to see all these red patches all over the towel. Fuck! I was bleeding more than I thought!
It wasn’t until the morning, when I turned the light on, that I realised that it was just the pattern on the towel I was seeing. Of course.
Still, I have a mother-fucking headache this morning. My hair is still slightly reddish, I’d rather not wash it, as the scab seems pretty tender still and I don’t feel like having it bleeding again.
Still, not a bad effort, I’d have to say.
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July 30, 2005 | Filed Under
Alcoholic,
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Leave a Comment France 2004 : Part Two.
The flight was long. The first hour went fairly quickly, as it was a completely new experience, but I soon realised that I still had 11 hours to go. I’d never travelled non-stop for so long in my life before. I’d never travelled non-stop for more than 5 hours in my life before. 11 hours seemed almost incomprehensible.
The in-flight entertainment was crap. I didn’t watch any of it in this leg of the trip. Instead, I settled back into my seat, with my nifty neck cushion, and listened to my CDs, while reading letters from friends back home and the brilliant Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. I also came to the conclusion that the pacific ocean is big, blue, and empty. Sleep wouldn’t come, so it was a painfully long trip.
About three hours out from Los Angeles, Green Forms were distributed for entering the United States. These are very anal little forms which you must fill out perfectly, giving details such as your name, address, business in the states, passport number, contact details in the States, and so forth. And like I said, they must be filled out perfectly. No mistakes. No crossing things out. Not easy after ten hours cramped up, with turbulence shaking your pen around. I fail to understand why, in order to get off one plane and onto another out of the United States I was required to get a 90 day visitors Visa. Surely, they could have designed an international airport as important as LAX, so that passengers in transit don’t need to go outside, and thus can skip the entire requirement.
Especially since, upon landing, it required a good thirty minutes of queueing, a brief lookover from the officials, then a stamp on the card. Which was, in the end, nothing compared to the trip home again.
After collecting our bags and making our way to the International Terminal, we checked out bags onto the plane. Before they could go on, however, we had to subject them to a rigorous X-Ray search and random searches. My bag was, of course, searched. Unfortunately, I didn’t find out till I arrived in France, my guitar music never made it’s way back into my bag afterwards.
Straight up: LAX sucks. Singapore has swimming pools, showers, bedrooms, shopping plazas, everything and anything you could want. LAX has McDonalds. An Ice-Cream shop. And a crap giftshop. I learnt that McDonalds in the US tastes exactly the same as McDonalds in New Zealand. Except in America they advertise one price, then charge another. You have to add tax on yourself. Makes things quite confusing. Especially when I went to pay for my fries with the exact amount of money only to find I was thirty cents short.
Despite having already taken the leap and done a big flight, I was almost as nervous getting onto the plane to Europe as I was getting to the US. I downed a few drops of Rescue Remedy to try and keep my nerves calm.. and it sort of worked. Until I took so much that I think my body created a tolerance for it and it ceased to have any effect.
Boarding time came, and onto the plane we went. Stupidly, I’d forgotten to ask for a window seat. Which mean I was on the aisle. In the center, so no where near a window. Still, could have been worse.
My first impression upon entering the plane was “What a piece of crap!”. From the smart, snappy designs of Air New Zealand we went to the horrible Grey/Yellow vaguely reminiscent of the 80s design of Lufthansa! For in-flight entertainment we had two 14 inch TVs up the front of every cabin, the one closest to me with a distinct yellow tinge. Lufthansa’s only saving point was the abundance of large chocolate covered pretzels they carried on board.
I was getting to be fairly exhausted by this stage, it had been 18 hours since I left New Zealand. I thought that really, I should try and get some sleep. But it was not to bed. I managed to get about three hours of sleep during the course of that 12 hour flight. I was just wide awake for some reason. I would regret it later on, however.
We arrived in Frankfurt a at about 5pm on the 14th of January, that is, about two hours after we left New Zealand. Don’t you just love the way Time Zones work? Needless to say, my body clock was screwed.
Still, no time to worry about that, I had a flight leaving within an hour to take me and Kitty, a girl from Nelson, to Paris.
We hurried through customs, got our passports and tickets checked, and bundled onto the plane. There were a total of three other people in the plane with us. In comparison to the 747s we’d been in for the last 24 hours, it seemed pathetic.
This was our first experience of Europe. Our guides had gone. The Air hostess was doing the usual safety routine… but yabbering away in German, and French. Sure, I’m supposed to have learnt french. But I didn’t understand a thing! Suddenly, the realities of a country that doesn’t speak English dawned on me… it was scary, and damned exciting!
The trip was short, less than an hour. The air was clear outside, and looking down on Europe, this kind of euphoria seized me. We flew over German towns, with their red roofs. At some stage we crossed borders, but I had no idea when or where. All I could see was flatness. No hills, no mountains. Just flatness in every direction, and what seemed like unending towns. There was no countryside, it seemed. Towns were everywhere
We started banking around, and the pilot announced our descent towards Paris.
Paris!
Looking out the window, I saw a town surrounded in a brownish haze. Ah, the pollution we don’t have in New Zealand! As we got closer and lower, I could slowly make out separate buildings. My eyes scanned the city, looking for one thing in particular.
I found it. I honestly almost gasped, so surreal did it feel to think that there, out the window, I could see the Eiffel Tower.
July 29, 2005 | Filed Under
Classic,
La France |
Leave a Comment I was in quite a rush before leaving for the airport. All those ‘little’ jobs that I put off doing, thinking “That’ll only need five minutes or so, I’ll do it on Wednesday before I leave” suddenly weren’t so little. For a start, I’d promised my mum that I’d leave her with a nice, tidy, clean room. Of course, I never thought that that would require only five minutes of work, but I didn’t think it’d need more than an hour or two. And honestly, who wants to spend their last few days in the country cleaning out a room, while they could be out spending time with friends while it was still possible?
Needless to say, the room was left in a fairly horrid state. Mum told me simply to stop making an attempt at it, and just make sure I was completely ready to go, that I had everything I needed. I was all packed and ready, most of my stuff had been so since Sunday, I was so afraid I’d forget something important. Tickets and Passport were in my ‘travellers belt’, hidden below my T-Shirt.
The drive to the airport I was not feeling to good. I felt physically sick. I was trembling. I had quite a voyage ahead of me, and suddenly, I didn’t know if I wanted to go anymore. I checked in, seeming in a dreamworld, the lady behind the counter asking me what seats I would like. Window, of course. She gave me what I later decided was the best seat on the plane. The very last window seat. You only have one person sitting next to you instead of two, so it’s a lot easier to get in and out. You aren’t too far from the toilets. And, best of all, there’s this space behind your seat for if you feel like standing up.
My luggage was checked through, but I somehow forgot about my razor-blades in my hand luggage. Of course, with the US being so anal about such things, I couldn’t take them on the plane. I explained my plight to the lady who’d checked me onto my flight, and she actually took me around the back to where they were loading bags onto the trailers ready to be taken out to the plane, and told me to find my bag and put the blades in it. All I thought at the time was ‘hey, that’s so nice of her’ but when I think back, it’s also pretty damn dangerous. How was she to know that I was only putting razor blades the bag? That it was even my bag? For all she knew, the box could have been filled with drugs and I could have slipped it into an unsuspecting persons bag to be collected later on.
Of course, I did only have razor blade, and it was my bag, so everything was fine.
Some friends came to see me off at the airport, which was very nice. They even brought me some presents, which surprised me, and also created a bit of a problem as I had hardly any room to put anything. Thoughtful little things, such as buzzy-bee boxers, a little kiwi, and of course, the obligatory condom. I treasured them during my time away. The kiwiana, that is, not the condom. That just sat in my wallet, waiting…
When my call finally came, I could hardly believe it. Here, in the small airport room, was everyone I loved and I was about to leave it all. It was all I could do not to cry. Perhaps a tear or two slid down my face as I walked up the stairs to the plane, and paused dramatically for that final look back, but I held the rest in. I did not want this year to start badly.
The girl in front of me, who it turned out was also going on exchange with the same association I was, was however bawling her eyes out. Still, I was shook up enough about it all that I had significant trouble doing up my seatbelt.
After the plane took off, I started to calm down a bit. Much of the nerves slowly loosed down, and I looked out the window taking in every last drop of my country that was flying past. Towns, roads, it was so green. And, when I think back, so empty.
The plane arrived in Auckland after about an hour, where we (the bawling girl in front of me and I) were met by a couple of STS representatives, sporting oh so lovely bright yellow jackets with ‘STUDENT TRAVEL SCHOOLS’ emblazoned on them. We were briefly scolded for not having worn our STS T-Shirts to identify ourselves, but I didn’t see the big deal. The T-Shirts were gay, and it’s not like we couldn’t see our guides anyways. But, grudgingly, we put them on.
In Auckland airport I met the other thirty or so students about to wing their way to some foreign nation for a year. The atmosphere was buzzing with emotions. Excitement, nervousness, fear, homesickness, it made for a bit of awkwardness coupled with a general recognition by everyone of everyone as being in some way the same.
When we went to get on the plane, I noticed in front of me this huge guy in a wheelchair. My only thought was “oh god, he’s going to be next to me I know it” When I was allocated my seat (that great window seat at the back) I was told that the one next to it had already been reserved, it just made logical sense that someone as big as him would want to sit near the back where there are fewer people to annoy. I was not looking forward to it. Especially as we started making our way down the plane, people slowly branching off to their various seats, yet still the fat guy was in front of me, moving down towards the back. I prepared myself for the worst.
As luck would have it, he sat three rows in front of me. And I was damn glad. After seeing him, I understood why some airlines are starting to charge grossly overweight people for two seats. He was overflowing into the next seat. Had he been next to me, I would have spent the entire time squashed up against the wall.
The guys who was next to me, in the end, was a frequent commuter between the US and NZ, who had long before recognised the benefits of the back seats.
With the usual small talk made to people sitting next to you, more to calm my nerves than anything else, I buckled myself in. I had never seen a plane as big as this, it was huge. It honestly seemed like a house to me. So many people in one compartment…
The pilot came on the speakers, and introducing himself, and said that we’d be taking off in just a few minutes. Meanwhile, the air hostesses performed the safety routine for us, to which I paid much attention. I was not going to not know what to do should something go wrong. My heart was beating like crazy.
As we began taxi-ing out to the runway, my nerves was balled up so tight that I once again thought I was going to be ill. The plane began to accelerate down the runway, it’s speed showing up on the in-flight entertainment screen. I watched the slowly increasing numbers… and the the jumping numbers. Suddenly, we were going at over 350kph.. I looked out the window to see the scenery flashing past.
The pressure kicked in, and a huge grin swept over my face. My nerves unbundled themselves as adrenaline surged through my body. The plane rose up into the sky… and I was on my way.
First stop: America.
I’m sorry, I can’t help laughing about how dramatically cheesy I just wrote that… anticlimax I know. Thing is, that is exactly how it happened… I didn’t alter details to make it sound better. It’s all in the language used 
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July 26, 2005 | Filed Under
Classic,
La France |
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Sam’s Birthday was finally here, a night which had been spoken about, planned, talked up for months.I had quite high expectations.
The plan was originally to go to the Shihad concert, but that was quickly scrapped as too antisocial, and replaced with a general ‘piss-up’.
I got a call from Sam around eight telling me to meet everyone in town at the Hotel Quest. Realising that the next bus didn’t leave for an hour, I fronted myself up to the forty minute walk into town. What a start to the night.
Exactly forty minutes later, as I entered town feeling rather impressed with myself, I was greeted by a lovely shower of water chucked from the window above me after just having had removed my jacket.
Expecting to be in the bar of a hotel, I was surprised to find that Sam had not just a room, but a goddam suite in the Hotel for our drinking pleasure. The window from which offered a brilliant aim at passing pedestrians, as I had earlier discovered. Some poor lady later got some garlic bread on her head.
Drinking slowly started, as more and more people arrived. Sam introduced me to the heaven that is Vanilla Vodka and Sprite. One of the most delicious drinks I’ve had in a long time.
Girls are loud. Damn loud. Fucking loud. It seems that they cannot possibly have a conversation at a normal volume, they must constantly speak louder than the person before, at least 40db louder than any guy there. Did I say speak? Replace that with screech. The absolute epiphany of pain. Just to say “try on my shoooooeeeesss”.
Us guys abandoned this horror for the solace of the hallway. Needless to say, the girls soon followed, screeching and tumbling out of the door. The poor person in the next room was not impressed asking us very firmly to keep it down. His endearment to us was not at all helped by the sight of drunken giggling girls on the floor, and was marked with a simple “Jesus Christ!”
Us guys quickly came to the conclusion that we needed to leave, we needed to get away from the screeching, the unceasing noise causing irreparable damage to our ears. We needed to go to town, and soon!
Thing was, we were not at all drunk enough yet. It was time to get drunk, and quick. The shots began, although Sam refused to have any. Unfortunately, it took us quite a while to finally leave, and due to the non-instant affect of shots, I ended up having far too many.
I was thoroughly, utterly, irrevocably gone, I was walking in large circles. I tried to sit down, but missed the bed and hit the floor. I couldn’t figure out how to open the bathroom door.
Of course, I also entered the “shouting stage” and put it to good use by yelling “Shut up!” at the still-screeching girls.
Finally, we were on our way. A trail of people making their way into town, me walking all over the place. In my drunken belligerence, and eagerness to get into town, I walked and walked and walked until I was quickly pulled out from in front of an oncoming car. At which point, realising just how drunk I was, I burst out laughing.
I had had far too much to drink. My walking was getting worse, my speech further and further impaired. And we hadn’t even gotten to town.
As it stands, I didn’t go into any clubs, not that I would ever have been let in by the bouncer in any case. At this stage, however, I thought I could pull off a sober look, but was prudent enough to give my ID to Jordan to look after. He still has it, actually. Still, it never got looked at. Jordan decided to get a Kebab, I followed him in.
The next thing I remember, I was bent over the toilet, my pants around my ankles, forcefully losing my dinner. Twice. My drunken mind was vaguely interested by the darkish colour of my vomit.
“Bro, you ok?” Jordan had once again come looking for me. “Yeah” (fucken right). He asked if I wanted to go, cos he was apparently tired. More like he knew that I needed to get home before I passed out. I agreed. Time to go.
I finished up in the toilets, and met him outside, and was once again sick in the gutter. He hailed a taxi, and the next thing I knew we were on our way back to my place. My eyes refused to focus and all I could see was blurry lights flashing by. I felt the remains of my dinner once again stirring in my stomach. My head lolled to the side, and in a moment of clear-thought I wound the window down to relish the fresh air on my face.
The car pulled over, I jumped out after fumbling for a few seconds with the seat belt, and was, again, sick. I felt in my pocket, found my keys, and thrust them to Jordan.
It was 1.30 in the morning.
I think that I have finally broken my love for vodka. My drink of preference, now serves only to make me feel physically sick at just the thought of it. Which is a pity, because that Vanilla Vodka and Sprite was so damn good!
My god, am I paying for it today…
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July 10, 2005 | Filed Under
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Classic |
Leave a Comment ← Previous Page — Next Page →
Adey Ben, 2 months without a post is terrible. Get moving!!!!!
yojoe What about Missile Pops?
Shannon OMG. Check it out… http://mudhead.uottawa.ca/~pet e/beard.html
Ben A singular beer won’t quite cut it. But you’re on the right track…
