Cynicallous

A light, airy, effervescent, blog of grave consequence. (NOT!) Dedicated to those of us who must respond to negative stimuli by Chernobyling (entombing in concrete) our innermost thoughts.

Name:
Location: Slaughter, Louisiana, United States

A semi-gruntled corporate reliability engineer trying to make ends meet while keeping my wife happy, and myself out of the asylum.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Hi ho, hi ho. I'm back from Toronto. Or, Let us never again go to Canada. It is a silly place.

This was written yesterday in the Toronto airport as I was awaiting my departure. Enjoy if you must.

It's got to be tough to be Canadian these days. What with their national airline absolutely nonchalant aboot all of its flights being late. And their national pass-time aboot to be cancelled for the season.

The gate agent told me when I arrived at BDL that the flight was CURRENTLY ONLY one hour late and the flight leaves so irregularly she couldn't tell me for sure when it might actually depart. (We finally left 80 minutes late.)

Now today, it's 0930 and I'm at YYZ waiting at Gate S for a 1430 flight home. Given that the flight i'm waiting for is the return leg of the ludicrously inconsistent flight I was on yesterday, I'm not overly optimistic about leaving this ridiculous place anytime prior to 1545.

And who the fuck designed Toronto International, anyway? This has to be the least efficient, most poorly laid out, least traveler friendly, airport I've ever had the misfortune of being routed through. If you physically moved ORD and set it in the middle of DFW the combined cluster fuck would still be easier to navigate than this canuck nightmare.

The signage off the highway is minimal so it's nearly impossible to catch the proper exit the first time by it. The signage on the airport roads is confusing at best and incorrect at worst. There is no way to move between terminals other than on a shuttle bus, which, in and of itself was pretty efficient.

The bus made three separate stops at the terminal while playing a rather detailed recorded description of what would be found inside at each of the stops. I listened intently and chose which stop sounded correct. After I got into the ticketing area I noticed that all the stops led into the same enormous open, unsigned room.

So I stumbled around there for awhile until I found the sea of humanity in line for check in at the Air Canada counters. I really didn't want to wait with the masses even though I had six hours to kill, so I wandered around a bit more and randomly fell upon the electronic check-in kiosks. Handily, since there were no signs directing anyone to them, the kisoks were mostly empty. So, I checked in and attempted to find the entrance to the terminal.

After about fifteen minutes of shuffling back and forth, I decided to follow people who appeared to be a flight crew. (I figured that if anyone would know the way to the planes, they might.) As luck would have it, they did. After going through the customs entry line twice because I picked the wrong form from the shuffled pile scattered about on the table the first time, I was pleased to see that US citizens have their own line to get through customs. Since I was one of about three actual US citizens returning at that moment, compared to the massive exodus of Canadians, that went quickly. (They mustn't hate us too much, the entire fucking population of Toronto is vacationing in Newark this weekend.) But that was the end of the efficiency.

The customs area led directly to the security screening area. 700 lost souls queueing into five x-ray/magnetometers. I was surprised to see that several of the CATSA employes were full dress sikhs. (They reminded me that i've always wanted to grow a handlebar moustache.) They were very good at shoveling the bags of God-knows-what that people were trying to sneak across the border back to the bag check area from the security checkpoints. About an hour later I got through, narrowly avoiding the deep cavity search (The poor bastard behind me was picked for a random groping.) and was released into the wilds of the gate areas.

With limited signage, and only a vague understanding of the layout of this place, I set off to find my gate and determine the most efficient route from it to the nearest bar.

I've never been in an airport that put up signs indicating the distance to the next gate. I thought I was on the Mass pike. It was a 15 minute brisk walk from the bar to the gate. With signs placed every so often that said, "next gate, 300m".

And now I'm here at the gate, 4.5 hours early for a flight that has a better than 50% chance of being at least an hour late. I guess I'll waste an hour here and then see if the bar is serving by 1100.

Ahhh. 1108 and I've got my first beer in front of me. Hopefully the fish and chips will be decent. I really don't want to break any American money here. You just get screwed on the exchange rate, which, according to the plaque on the wall to my left, is $1.14C/USD.

I noticed on my way from the gate to the bar, that all of the fire extinguishers are marked with GREEN signs. Weird.

I wonder if the lack of signage is a result of this country being so divided by bi-lingualism that they just don't do anything that might offend someone?

Well. That was very good. I heartily recommend the Quayside Bar & Grill if you're ever stuck in terminal 2 at YYZ. Get the fish & chips. You'll be glad you did. Say hi to Joe. Good bartender and sounds a lot like Steve Buscemi.

Much better. Three LaBatts and the Fish & Chips later and I'm prepped for whatever delays come my way. Amazing what $40C can do for a person.

So far, as of 1231, the flight is still considered "on time". But given the reaction of the counter clerk yesterday, I'm not getting my hopes up.

1348 and so far so good. But boy does the intercom system here suck. There is some sort of computer generated beep that goes off every 15 seconds. The announcers have to race it or they get cut off. I've heard every message today at least four times before they got it all out.

Just had to fill out an id card with effectively next of kin information for the USDOT. The other nerds on the flight joke that it's big brother tracking their patterns. I think it's the feds guaranteeing that they know who was on a future hijack.

1426 and I'm on a Beechcraft 1900D getting ready to depart. Seat 9D. Last row on the right, no recliner, near the shitter. At least we're on our way.

1442 and we're off the ground. Here's to a smooth flight.

1555 and we're on the tarmac at BDL again. A bit bumpy from about 8000 ft down, but at least we're home.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Holy Smokes! I can't believe it's that bad! (By the way your language is appalling! not that you give a darn!) I'm glad that you made it back! See you next Saturday if it's possible what with your schedule and all.We'll go to the horseshoe tournament and then on to Torrington if......

8:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, you make me laugh! Thanks!

8:58 AM  

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