The great thing about travel is that – so long as everything is running smoothly – it is a time for calm contemplation. Isn’t it? But before that though there are
- Queues to buy your train ticket
- Queues to access the platform
- Queues to exit the railway station
- Queues for access to the airport check-in area
- Queues to access the check-in screen
- Queues to put your luggage onto the belt before that red button is pressed and it trundles and rumbles away, perhaps never to be seen again
- Then queues for security – is my new knee going to alert the scanners again?
- Queues to find a spot to put your shoes back on and reload your hand-baggage
- Then expecting a pause, entering the overcrowded departure lounge, the soundscape alone is overwhelming. There aren’t enough free seats to allow you to sit with your travelling companion, which makes me ponder on how humans – and I consciously avoid calling us humanity because we as a species can be (and often are) thoughtlessly inhumane – are plundering the planet and pushing Nature to the brink. So why am I contributing to the destruction by flying then? Probably because although I try to be plant-based, I too am inhumane.
- I clock the screaming “terrible two” year old whose parents ineffectually, apologetically try reason, then bribery. I watch, wanting to help but do nothing for fear of being assumed to be a weirdo or paedo.
- Could I offer help to the bewildered? Best not.
- I see the almost invisible cleaners and servers working amidst those in
- Queues for the loos
- Queues for water
- Queues for coffee
- Incomprehensible announcement, which half heard, makes you wonder if it related to your flight… then…
- Queue for the gate
- Queue to reach your seat on the plane while people struggle with too much carry-on luggage.
Then finally a lull to clip in and enjoy reading your book… followed by
- Queue for the loo
- Queuing to disembark while people struggle with too much carry-on luggage
- Queuing – maybe in the wrong queue – for immigration and always a surly official
- A scrimmage to see if your luggage has arrived and been off-loaded
- A skirmish to grab your luggage before it heads away again down the conveyor belt, maybe never to be seen again
- Queues to access an ATM
- Queues to ask about buses or taxis
- Queues and long waits because of mega bureaucracy to secure a local sim so that…
Finally you can begin posting photos of glasses of beer or cocktails or sumptuous meals, hoping to make folks back home just a little envious.
