I can only wish the same good luck to all in my pack of fellow travelers. Because it surely has been an easy trip so far.
(I write "so far," because I'm not there yet. I'm at the moment passing through Paris airport.)
Oh, I was tense alright, but not for my own travels. One of my daughters was also leaving Wednesday, ahead of the rest of the family (she's meeting her friend in Krakow for two days). Her flight left from Chicago. It's a fairly easy three hour bus ride from Madison to Chicago's airport. On the average. Wednesday, on the other hand, was not average. Attending to a million details prior to her departure (packing up the kids' suitcases -- they are to leave with their dad in a couple of days, attending to the animal sitter, attending to one child's birthday, you know how it is. Busy mother, lots to do), she missed her bus. Not great, but still okay, with enough time to make her flight.
Then the storms hit Madison.
The next bus was one hour late leaving. This meant that if there would be traffic, she was doomed to miss her flight. If the storms kept at it and the bus would be even more late, she would miss her flight. If there were lines at security in Chicago, she would miss her flight. I spent my five hours in Detroit tracking her movement, not really having a Plan B in case she did miss her flight.
So, out of the 11 travelers, 3 are already in Europe. May the rest succeed without storms or stress!
* * *
Very many early summer days in Poland are really beautiful. When it's good, it's very very good. When the weather brings the cold and the rain, then it can get pretty dismal. The grays stand out. I've always thought that some cities can handle rain well. Paris, for example, can be quite lovely when made wet from a passing shower (though less lovely when overtaken by a deluge -- I've had days there when the metros flooded from a torrential never-ending rain).
I always thought that Warsaw doesn't handle rain that well. People get cranky. All those jostling umbrellas, crowded buses. Buildings look like they wished the rain had been more successful in stripping them of urban patina.
But on the other hand, I grew up in this city, and it wasn't always sunny and warm. Rain is part of the picture. So maybe I should be glad that it'll be a very wet week?
* * *
This trip has given me a boost in my thinking about senior travels. I can be forgetful in my daily life, but I kept everything straight this month, both with the complicated garden launch and the super complicated trip planning, and I forgot nothing (except to take down the three cacti in the bedroom, but heck, Ed is capable of watering them in the upstairs. And if he misses them, it can't matter. They're cacti, for Pete's sake, they can survive a dry spell).
But in the Paris transfer, I forgot something.
I'd like to say this has never happened to me before, but the fact is, just a year ago I had a similar incident and that time it was my fault.
Both incidents happened at the security check point. A year ago, I was with Snowdrop and I forgot to pick up my laptop after it had gone through the screening. This time, I followed the protocols, but the agent didn't like my purse, camera, and watch sharing a bin. She separated them and put the trays in various places along the line. Then, as always, my platinum knee triggered an alert and the exam I got was ridiculously long. With shoes. Without shoes. Send shoes through separately. Scan feet. Pat down anyway. In other words, the works. I'm used to the variety of reactions to the fake knee problem, but this one took forever and my trays had long gone through. And someone, not me, but someone else, possibly a security person, saw an "empty" tray and placed it in the stack, not noticing my watch at the far corner.
When I picked up my stuff -- and this part is my fault -- I did not notice that the watch was missing.
Perhaps you've heard of the chaos at European airports due to the new system of American passport checks: no more stamps, it's all electronic. Long lines. Long waits. Missed flights. Well, at the Paris airport, all was calm. The transfer to terminal 2F was seamless and without a wait. I sailed through! And then I looked down to check the time, wanting to see how much was left for a coffee and a croissant. And all I saw was a white outline on my skin of a watch.
I had to go back through passport control. And the security staff couldn't find my watch. So many trays had passed through that the only hope was to take stacks of them from other lines and pass them through the x-ray machine, stacked and empty. My watch turned up at the very last batch. Picked up too quickly by the someone, with me not noticing the mistake.
* * *
Air France requires a period of ten consecutive years of extreme loyalty before they grant you a lifetime of "status." Much has been written recently about travelers and status and lounge access and such -- I find the generalizations made in such writings to be ridiculously narrow. People want loyalty benefits for any number of reasons. For me, they click in when things go wrong. When lines are long. When your suitcase needs to be sent through. When you need a quiet corner and you're at an airport like Atlanta where there are no quiet corners. I think my faithful clinging to my airline of choice (Air France, with partners KLM and Delta) for ten years straight should come with some benefits. But I really am not happy that such benefits as airport lounges (in the US especially) are magnets for people who want to drink themselves silly and who are willing to throw money at an airline for the privilege of doing just that. Airlines reward you with privileges merely for using their credit card. It's no longer a room full of weary travelers who have been on one plane too many, but a room full of people for whom money is like a toy.
I finally concluded my ten year slog into lifetime status this year. And today, I definitely benefited from being part of their "family." I will have spent more hours at airports than in flight, and that's saying a lot, considering I had three flights and one of them was over the Atlantic.
The sticking point happened in Paris. We boarded the airplane for Warsaw, sat in it, sat in it, sat in it, until the captain admitted that it was beyond hope. Something was broken and could not be fixed. And by the way, the crew is tired so they're going home.
None of this is the fault of the airline. There was no one you could be mad at. Even when they located a spare aircraft and lead us to another gate, which opened up to a bus, which we eventually were allowed to board. And we waited and waited and waited and then were told to get off the bus, because the spare aircraft was ready but the spare crew hadn't arrived.
This is where I scooted to a quiet space at the airport, where I ate a decent snack, much appreciated, given the size of the earlier one shown above.
In the end, I had spent two hours in Madison's airport, five in Detroit's, and seven in the Paris one. I wondered if, had I known how long it would be, would have I taken the train into Paris. For a park walk maybe. And the answer was obvious to me and very much tied to my age. Twenty years ago I had a layover in Paris of equal length and I did go in. But at 73, after a string of sleep deprived days and nights, I'd pass. Give me that quiet corner any time. To read, have a coffee, to think.
* * *
If I had to pick my most traveled flight route in the US, I surely would go with the one between Madison and Detroit. In Europe? It would be, hands down, the one between Paris and Warsaw.
And despite the dozens of times I have done it, I still get that uneasy feeling each time we approach Warsaw. As if a long closed door is opening within me and I'm about to see a ghost of Christmas Past. I'm not tied to the place anymore. I am very much a part of another world and have been for a long long time. And yet...
It could be that I have my sister still in Poland. And my friend Bee, with whom I chat one way or another as often as I would were she to live in Madison. And my group of friends that were part of my formative world as a young person in search of something, not really having a clear idea what.
But really, it is the ghosts here that mess with my emotions. Warsaw doesn't look the same as it did back then, under so called communism. Except that to me, it looks and feels exactly the same. Oh, there are the flashy stores now and the tall office buildings. People dress well and surf their smart phones on the bus or tram. But look closer and you'll see it -- the remains of the old Warsaw. The old women without much of the new wealth, with tired faces and tired looking shoes. The girls with long braids, the young men using a vulgar slang every other word so that it's a string of whore, whore, whore, coming out in every sentences. The stores that sell nothing that an American would consider serviceable. The Mazurek cake on every Easter table, the herring on every Christmas Eve table. The church, always the church. The entrances to apartment buildings: front and center in New York, through thick doors and with a concierge in Paris, and off to the side, maybe through a courtyard and in the back of the building in Warsaw.
It's all still there. And it hits me hard as I sink right into its clutches, wondering if I am still basically Polish after all.
* * *
Once I'm finally out of the airport, I take a cab to the hotel. My driver, an older gentlemanly guy, had never heard of it and he asks me if it's the one near the something or other. I dont know! I'm just a traveler arriving at the international Airport in Warsaw. This is your city! I take out my phone, look at the map app, hand it to him. Here, it's this one. He half turns while still driving. He puts on his glasses. Not good enough. He takes out a magnifying glass -- all with one hand on the wheel and half an eye on the road. It is the first driver that I have had in the last decade who dos not use technology to show the way.
* * *
I was to come into town in the afternoon, check in to my hotel of choice (Warsaw Puro Stare Miasto, in a room with a view...)
... and see Bee for a leisurely chat. Instead, the flight gets in at 7:15 and it isn't until 8:30 that I approach the Puro front desk. And still, I want to see my friend tonight.
(cornflowers in my room, from Bee and her husband)
Tired that I am, it is nonetheless total joy to be able to sit down with her once again. I order a cheesecake. Not much of a dinner, but then, Air France fed us during the flight. (And they gave us an 11 Euro voucher for more food because of the delay, though where and when that was supposed to happen is beyond me,)
A beautiful evening in the end. And of course, this is just the beginning.
With so much love...
