Au Revoir Quebec, Hello Big Apple

Wow, what a day! All I can say is that getting to your intended destination in the end is worth it, I can’t complain, but I’ll tell you the tale anyway!

First off is the admission that in one way I’m not a good traveler. I have anxiety the night before flying. I’m not scare of flying, I’m scared of missing my flight. It’s happened a couple of times, probably has to everyone who flies enough, and in the end, it has always worked out, but it’s still a phantom in the closet when I go to bed the night before a flight.

I got perhaps four good hours of sleep last night, and then it was up every hour (or less) to look at the clock. When it finally was time, I sprung into motion. I had lunch at 7:30am because I was up so early. Then I packed and sat in the TV room for awhile because I knew it was really unreasonably early to go to the airport and I couldn’t exactly sit in the room where my room-mate was trying to sleep.  When it was finally close enough, I set sail for the airport in a taxi, the first of many conveyances today. The taxi driver spoke English to me – shock! I don’t know if it was his first language or if he pegged me as English speaking. If he did, he didn’t do a great job as he asked if I was going back to Australia?! Me?? Why do I unintentionally fool so many people. Still, this was a first for Australian.

That was about the extent of our conversation. I made a little more small talk before I decided he really wasn’t that interested in talking and I settled into the sound of the radio the rest of the measly half hour it took.

The Quebec airport is not huge, but it’s not a fly speck in the grand scheme of things. I’ve certainly had my share of small airports and I usually like them. They tend to be less crowded and less uptight. So, I don’t know if that was the reason for my awesome airport experience or if Canada’s airport security is genuinely so fantastic, but I was so happy to be treated like a human being for a change. The first person I encountered was just so nice. I asked if I needed to take my laptop out separately and the response was “yes, please” – PLEASE… I nearly fainted on the spot. As I began pulling off a ton of outerwear to put on the belt, he actually started helping put it in the bins. Our one misunderstanding was when I pointed at my shoes and asked if I needed to take them off. His response was “non, shoes.” I took this as “no shoes” and started to take them off, and he started waving his hands, “non, non!” I laughed and literally said, “yippeee!” I was so excited. It’s not taking them off. It’s having to put them back on over these thick socks after that I hate. Everyone in security was totally nice and affable.

I ended up getting to hang out even longer than expected. I was way earlier than I had to be and the plane was late, but some of the seats in the airport have power outlets under them (the seats are marked by a little lightning bolt on the back), so I just made myself comfortable and plugged in for some electricity while I waited. It would be the first of many waits today!

The flight from Quebec to Philadelphia was hum drum enough but it didn’t make up for the time we lost waiting in Quebec (actually waiting for the first plane from Philly to get in to turn around and take us back). I originally had two hours to clear passport and customs in Philly before making my connection, but I lost a good chunk of that. And although the passport/customs part wasn’t so bad, security after was as slow and dehumanizing as ever. Why is there a need to scream at people in the airport like they’re slow. I reckon we all somehow got dressed and got there??! We can’t be completely brain-dead, and a little kindness goes a long way…  I’ll never understand it…

To add to the fun, I got to take a bus from one terminal to another because there’s some sort of construction project going on at Philly’s airport. There went the rest of my time. While waiting, I looked at my boarding pass and I was on the first row and in zone 1 for boarding… miracle… I’ve never been in zone 1 for boarding, no matter where I sat. You know where this is going right? When they began boarding us, and I got to go first after the sick and the VIPs, guess what was waiting outside the door? A bus! I was in zone 1 to board a bus to go to the plane out on the tarmac… Why even bother with zones for a bus? I had a wonderful inward laugh at the silly habit we have of sticking to the script. The script ways you board by zones, no matter. Here’s the next place we waited… I don’t know why, but we stood on that bus for 20 minutes and then out onto the tarmac and rode forever. We finally got to our plane and I discovered that my row 1 seat faced the opposite way of everyone else’s – Row 1 had two seats opposite the door facing Row 2. All the other rows faced forward, just that one random row…

And then we waited again for a poorly explained reason that I’m sure had to do with the skies being full somewhere. When we finally touched down at Newark, I could have almost kissed New Jersey! I could have, but I wanted to get to my shuttle post haste. Grabbed bags and ran to ground transportation. I had missed my original shuttle by ages but got put through on another. It was just me and one other guy, so the driver went around the airport twice picking up more… sigh… booking ahead doesn’t really help does it? We had a good laugh as we saw the place we got on come around again – seriously? No explanation offered, we just went in circles until he was full I guess. Then we were off for the races. He seriously drove like the proverbial bat out of hell all the way from Newark and then all over Manhattan as he dropped people off.

I’ll seriously never forget the first stop. It had been long enough since I booked my hotel that I didn’t remember much about where it was or what it looked like other than it hadn’t had any highly objectionable reviews. We stopped outside of a hotel that looked like something from a horror movie for one passenger. I stared, mouth agape, hoping he didn’t call my hotel’s name. Then I looked up and read the name… whew… Then I heard a few passengers behind me tentatively ask… what did he say the name of this one is…I’m sure they had that same moment of fear before another passenger hopped out. That dread stuck with me all the way here. And I was the dead last passenger to get dropped off… But the Pod Hotel seems okay so far. Really haven’t done more than wander briefly, but the area seems nice. I need to look at a map in the morning and figure out how to get to a subway, etc. All I did this evening was find food…

Yes, if you hadn’t noticed, I mentioned eating breakfast and then didn’t mention food again… that’s because my next chance for a meal was 13 hours later… I devoured those nachos, let me tell you. And it was darn close to McDonalds if I hadn’t suddenly spotted that Qdoba a corner further up the street… ahhh…

Anyway, je suis tres fatigue! And hot! It feels like a thousand degrees in New York City after a week in the deep freeze. It goes to show just how subjective things like hot and cold could be. Two weeks ago, this would be winter, not frigid winter, but winter. Now it’s a spring day. I loved Quebec and would love to visit again and see more of Canada as well, but I’m also looking forward to enjoying a little NYC before going home! But not tonight… tonight, we sleep with a happy full tummy…