1st Days

Ian’s Travel Journal

September 30
Sometimes when you travel and you get a dream run you should probably expect something to go wrong. After all when I got to the airport check-in I could walk straight up without waiting. It took me longer to get my passport and boarding pass out of my travel wallet than it did to get processed. And there I was, congratulating myself on what a good idea it was to do the electronic check-in the day before and print off my boarding pass in advance.
And then I breezed through customs and immigration, perhaps a three minute wait. International travel should always be this easy. A stroll through duty free, purchase 2 bottles of single malt for my return: they were on special at a good price. Life’s good. Connected to international call roaming and I was all ready for the departure.
Waiting at Gate 9 for my departure at 15.30 I was sipping on my latte, beginning to read ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ when the announcement came over the speaker, ‘ Passengers on QF9 should note that there will be a delay in your departure time due to an engineering problem with your plane. One of the sensors on the plane’s wing has a fault which will require us to fix prior to your departure. An engineer is addressing the problem now but he needs some glue to seal it. Unfortunately we do not have this glue at Melbourne Airport and we will need to get it from Avalon. Your new departure time is 20.30 and we apologise for this delay.’ Gee, we just have to wait around for an extra 5 hours, I’m going to miss my Air France connection in Singapore and my lunch with Barb and Bill in Paris tomorrow is looking decidedly shaky and he says he is sorry. Hmmmmmm! And here I am, looking at the engineer on top of a ladder with a spanner in his hand and make some adjustments to the sensor. Now I know what he is up to.
An hour later we are informed that the sealant, (not glue), has been put on and we can leave at 17.30, just 2 hours late. Things are improving. I’m first onto the plane in the economy section and the seat next to me is vacant to give me more space. The woman by the window is good company, private, but with a friendly disposition and interesting conversation. We are now cruising at a lower altitude and the captain has his foot firmly on the accelerator to make up some time so I might get my connection after all. We will arrive in Singapore at 20.20 and my Air France connection is at 20.55. Hmmm, might make it but it could be a rush. We will see.
I’ve just had a guided tour of an Apple i-Pad. Wow! There s a lot to like. It turns out that the lady by the window is a doctor and into research on Downes Syndrome, Alzheimer’s Disease and I can’t remember her other specialty but she was typing out a presentation for a while. No really, I can’t. This is the first i-Pad I have seen. I’m impressed. She could bring up maps of Paris, lots of apps but the photos in her collection were so vivid; the colours were amazing. And you could enlarge them at the touch of two fingers. I want one.
She showed me photographs of art work, sculptures and buildings. My appetite for what lies ahead is growing. The most amazing photograph was a stained glass dome from the inside of a women’s dress shop. It looked like what you should see in a cathedral. Magic.
At the end of our trip she invited me to accompany her to the Qantas lounge. Why not? A quick drink and then back on a new plane would be just the thing. At the lounge I was told that I would have to go back to collect a new ticket and boarding pass. Well that’s a complication. A queue, some delay in issuing the new ticket and I now have a dilemma. I have about 20 minutes before boarding starts, the Qantas lounge is 5 minutes away, and I still have to go through some scans to get to the boarding lounge. What to do? I opt for safety and head for the plane. I guess Jenny will cope with being stood up but, nevertheless, I don’t feel good about it. It’s an opportunity lost, just to say thank you for some companionship.
Things Are Conspiring
This story hasn’t unfolded yet but I don’t like the way that it is going. Our plan was simple. I would meet Barb and Bill for lunch on my first day in Paris. It would be their second last day. Barb would do the research and find a really good place to go. We’d have lunch because it would be cheaper than in the evening but the food quality would be the same. They’d just ring me and tell me where the restaurant was and we would meet.
For me it would be straight forward. I would arrive at Charles de Gaulle Airport at 6.00 in the morning, make my way to my hotel via the RER and Metro, leave my luggage with the concierge after getting a chance for a shower and a change of clothes.
Well that was before the sealant episode in Melbourne and what happened with my mobile phone.
I don’t know why I left this to the last moment but I did. I thought the phone was on international call roaming. It was for our last trip and I hadn’t changed it. I was 95% sure that we still had the service. I was at the airport with lots of time to spare so I thought, I’ll just make sure so I rang Telstra.
Well it turns out I didn’t have the call roaming service on so I asked for that to be done.
The conversation went something like this.
‘Before I can change your service I need some personal details. You name….’
‘Ian Kemp.’
‘Your address …’ and so on. ‘Please wait while I check these.’ [Time passes].
‘I’m afraid you don’t seem to be the person who has this phone account.’
‘Oh, that will be because the phone was in my wife’s name. Vera Kemp, date of birth, 6.3.50 ….’
‘Can I speak with her please?’
‘Well no, she is deceased.’
‘Oh, I’m very sorry. Look I’ll just have to speak with my supervisor to see how we can change the account over to your name. Can you hold? I’ll just be 5 minutes.’
He was true to his word. And so the conversation and the process progressed. The service operator was very pleasant, the breaks for checking things on the computer got longer, eventually all was done. It just took 55 minutes, that’s all.
Why am I telling you all of this? Well, I’ll let you know in a moment.
The other portents of doom were also emerging. My flight from Singapore to Paris was now not available because of our late arrival. I now had a flight to London, arriving at 7.15am. Disembark at Heathrow and catch another plane back to Paris where I will arrive just after 11.00am.
My plane to London was delayed by 45 minutes to fix the door. Whilst I’m pleased that this fault was detected and corrected, it did mean that I would arrive late at Heathrow.
And now the clincher.
Just as I was going to get on the plane I heard the sound from my phone, you know, the one that indicates that your battery is flat. And then there was this sudden stream of consciousness. I thought my phone was charged. Well yes it was until you had that long chat with Telstra. How am I going to charge it, the charger is in my suitcase and I can’t get access to it until I get to the hotel and then there’s the time to charge it. How will Barb and Bill ring? They don’t have my hotel phone number and my phone’s dead. Will I have enough charge to get their mobile phone number out of my phone so that I can ring them and find the name of the restaurant? How long will it take me to get from Charles de Gaulle to Chatellet des Halles and then on to the Rome Metro station and then to the hotel? What time is lunch? Can I get there on time? Can I really go there in the clothes that I am now wearing and have had on for the last 24 hours? Can I get a shower and shave at the hotel?
I just hope that I am not standing up more people.
Stay tuned.
October 1
I just knew it would happen like this:
• Arrived at Heathrow, only to find that I had missed my connection to Charles de Gaulle because my plane was late. Naturally.
• Got put on stand-by and got a seat on the next flight to Paris.
• Arrived at my hotel at 3.00pm. Just 9 hours late.
Well that’s international travel for you. The art/science of getting you closer to your destination by degrees. It is not a precise science, but it works – sort of.
The Singapore-Heathrow part of my trip was in an A380. It was very nice and very new. If it was a car you could smell the leather. And the service was impeccable too. Qantas are always good.
I caught up with Barb and Bill Robb and their son Nick and his Russian girlfriend Marsha. We had dinner at the junior restaurant owner by Gerard Depardieu near the Opera. It offered great fish dishes. They were cooked at the main (and more expensive) restaurant across the road. We had a good night and made some arrangements to meet up at Balnarring in January.
October 2
Changed hotels today and I am now at the more luxurious Pullman Paris Tour Eiffel. The service is excellent and it is, as the name suggests, next to the Tour.
This morning as I was shaving, I was wondering how Collingwood was going. Didn’t need to wait long. Got an sms from Jill which said ‘Yeah, go Collingwood’ so I assumed we had won. I then got messages from Andrew, Grant Stewart and a phone call from Jennifer to give me more details. What a great result. I just need Andrew to buy me the Sunday and Monday Age so that I can put it with my 1990 papers as part of my Collingwood premiership memorabilia. Bad luck Tony but at least I enjoyed the result.

I meet up with the tour group later today.