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Published: April 27th 2007
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Travelling:
me, just me, tired, with blisters in my feet and fucked up ankle as a souvenir from the beautiful Chamonix glacier Route:
Nancy- Paris Est, Paris CDG-Copenhagen, Copenhagen-Helsinki, Helsinki-Jyväskylä After all the travelling I wanted to visit home. Woke up super-early in Nancy, took the 6am train to Paris Est and made it well to the 9.05
bus nro 350 towards Roissypole (4,2e). The morning sun was shining beautifully between the nice parisian buildings, had Billie Holiday singing to my ears, everything was going smoothly, and I felt happy about the thought going back home, taking already most of my clothes and others not so usefull things back so I could then just take it easy when finally returning home after the exchange year.
Normally it takes about one hour to get to Roissypole, and I had calculated I would have enough time to catch the flight. But. The bus stops mid-way, they change drivers, but the other driver is late for 10 minutes. Come on, come on! Am not panicking yet, taking it quite easy. Closer to Roissypole I notice I don't have the terminal number marked on my electronic ticket. Why didn't I check it earlier? Great, this taking it easy-attitude isn't so cool idea after all, I realize a little too late. Trying to call the service number. Can't connect. The bus arrives to Roissypole. My plane leaves exactly in one hour. Ok, no problem, call again. At the same time I walk to the bus stop where the bus normally leaves to different terminals. There's a note: "from april 15th this service has been canceled, you have to take the metro instead". No!! What metro? How do I get there? I call the service number again and walk inside to find a service-desk. The service-desk woman tells me something as I ask where I should go. I don't really understand the word she is saying (now I know she said
CDGVAL), but walk to the direction she was showing me. Find a new metro-kind of train from downstrairs that seems to run on both terminals 1&2 (free of charge and actually pretty fast). Am calling the service again. "Dear customer, you will be served right away, just wait in the line. You're call is important to us." Well, not as important as it is to me, I think and feeling a bit nervous already. My plane leaves in 50 minutes. The service is not answering and I decide to take the next "train". Terminal 1 or 2? Last time the plane left from 2. I decide to take a risk. 45 minutes.
I run out from the train with my 2 heavy bags. Who the fucking genious designed this airport? It's just kilometres of walking (running in this case)! I run and run and finally can see the departing board. My flight is not marked there. I run to an info desk and ask if they can see my flight there. They ask me to go to the next desk 50 metres further. So I run again. There a serious looking madame, who looks at my sweaty face with pity when she informs me that am in the wrong terminal. Oh no. 35 minutes left. Run you silly girl, run!
With my very poor sense of direction am trying to remember the way back to the train. Now am starting to feel slightly worried. There's a young, skinny, nerd looking guy standing on my way. He says he works at the airport and asks me if he can help me. Am explaining to him with my french that am "très en retard" and trying to find the train to get to the other terminal. He offers to show me the way, takes my other huge bag and starts running with me. We get to the train, he is talking to me something in french, and am just saying "oui oui" every once in a while as am too out of breath and tired to understand him. He says I might make it. It's 25 minutes before my plane leaves. We run like crazy again, have to go to the salle 4, find the SAS desk. 20 minutes left. "You are too late", says a grumpy-looking SAS-lady. I hate her immediately. "Are you sure?" "Yes, with luggage it's impossible". I don't wanna give up now. She makes some phone calls and tells me to go to the other desk. The skinny nerd follows me with my suitcase. "Is there any other flights?" I ask her and am feeling pretty desperate. I gotta get out of here, and I want to get home. "No, everything is full booked, tonight at 20h there's a flight to Stockholm but your ticket is not changeable". WHY oh why did I want to save money on that kind of things??? "So, without luggage I could take the flight?" "Yes". I decide in one second that am going to leave my luggage there and just take my "handbag" a.k.a. backpack full of books with me. The nerdy says he lives in Paris and I tell him am back in one week. He agrees to keep my super heavy back, we change phone numbers, I get my boarding pass and I start running again towards "satellite 7". I somehow know I'll never see my bag again. Bye bye clothes, bye bye shoes. Anyway, I had been feeling like I wanted to get rid of my extra things, to go more simple, live a little bit more feng shui, so in a way this was my answer...
I keep on running, the blisters are hurting as hell and my hurting ankle has doubled its size but I don't care. Fuck. Am gonna make it! 10 minutes left. Need to get home!! They are calling my name and telling me "the passanger ..... to get immediately to the gate 71". Yes, am coming! Waiiiiiit! I can see finally the security check-line and excuse myself as pass the line. "You're the girl they're calling?" "Yeah..." Quelle humiliation! Last 10 metres and I get to the gate. Yes!
Later in the plane a finnish woman next to me says my intrance to the gate was pretty impressive. Haha. She makes me feel better by telling about her numerous "nearly missing the flight"-experiences.
What did I learn from this? Never trust the timetables, never trust your own plan too much, because things might not go as smoothly as you think. This counts on everything in life. It's great to travel without stress but some basic things is good to check before leaving. And yeah, sometimes it's worth paying the extra fee to get some of your money back in case your trip gets cancelled..
Tips about Helsinki airport: you can get really handy to the railway-station with Finnair-bus (5,2e) which leaves right in front of the arrivals-terminal. Takes about 30 min. Also cheaper alternative exists,
bus 615 from the airport (=lentoasema) to city-center (takes about 40 minutes), you have to buy the ticket from the arrivals hall. If you need to get to other cities, there is also an
Express-bus thingy leaving right from the airport.
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non-member comment
Hui...
mikä kotiintulo...ja toivottavasti laukkusi on turvassa sen nörtin luona... aina pitäisi olla plan B...vaikka joskus se on tylsää, eli tän muistat aina : ).