Arriving home part one
I still have not awoken from this haze hovering over me and I feel like I am living in parrallel universes. It has been two days now since I arrived in Toronto, Canada and for once I feel that I might be able to plan my lessons for the upcoming semester and start uploading pictures on webshots to share. I will also start adding pictures to the blog and revealing more details about my trip.
Ellen and I had quite an adventure whilst in London and Paris. It began when we arrived at the CDG. Ellen slung her camera over her shoulder to ensure that it would be safe and covered it with the camera case. I was pushing our luggage along in a trolley when we rolled up to the check in desk for Air France. A lady approached us and stared at both of us sternly before asking Ellen if she was bringing any creams, makeup or mascara onto the plane. She looked directly at Ellen's camera case. We wanted to burst out laughing for it was the most absurd thing we ever heard. Why would anyone care if we had creams and more so why would you think we would hide it in a camera case? Ellen paused for a moment to collect herself and replied "no." The woman asked me the same question and I offered the same answer. Then she looked at Ellen and said, "for it is forbidden!" That was when we really wanted to laugh.
We were able to check in our luggage, but as we passed through security we noticed people taking off their shoes and everyone was padded down. It seemed that they were becoming increasingly more strict with us and it was not until afterwards that I told Ellen that I thought it may because of these potential terrorist attacks I saw on the news briefly. I thought back to the brief pannel discusssions on CNN and to the tidbits on SkyNews, but could not place anything that would require such bizzare behaviour.
We arrived in London and noticed that there were more police than normal patrolling the area outside Heathrow airport and to our surprised two of the guards were holding machine guns. We were a bit perplexed by the unravelling of events, but still assumed it must be something about these potential attacks. Ellen had not heard anything and I was still trying to place the clues from my unconcious together. There weren't any real news at the airport so we would have to wait until we logged onto the internet to discover more details.
We read emails from our parents and we found out that ten American airlines had bomb threats and supposedly people were going to bring the materials in through liquids. Our parents had warned us that we would not be able to bring in carryon luggage and that there could be a four hour wait at the airport. Although there were a few sensational headlines splattered around the newsagents, there was no real big news around the city. We watched the news that night, but there was only a ten minuite segment that was reviewing what we had already known about placing everything in clear plastic bags. The only new news that we noticed was that we could not even bring liquids bought at the airport onto the plane. The new catch phrase was "Whatever makes your life more pleasant and bearable, you cannot have!"
our flight was suppose to depart at 11:40am and so we arranged to be at the airport at 7:00am. I was pleasantly surprised when the whole procedure from check in to arriving in the airport lounge in the terminal only took two hours. We would occasionally check the television monitors for when we were suppose to board and to which gate we should report to. It was at 10:30am that we noticed something slightly odd. It said "New Info 12:00". I wondered aloud why they would give us new info at noon when our plane was suppose to depart 20 minuites earlier. We strolled over to the information desk where a clerk informed us that our plane would be slightly delayed and just to wait for more info. We were not worried for we thought the plane would probably only be delayed for a few hours and were relieved to think that at least we could leave that day. Boy, were we wrong.
Ellen and I had quite an adventure whilst in London and Paris. It began when we arrived at the CDG. Ellen slung her camera over her shoulder to ensure that it would be safe and covered it with the camera case. I was pushing our luggage along in a trolley when we rolled up to the check in desk for Air France. A lady approached us and stared at both of us sternly before asking Ellen if she was bringing any creams, makeup or mascara onto the plane. She looked directly at Ellen's camera case. We wanted to burst out laughing for it was the most absurd thing we ever heard. Why would anyone care if we had creams and more so why would you think we would hide it in a camera case? Ellen paused for a moment to collect herself and replied "no." The woman asked me the same question and I offered the same answer. Then she looked at Ellen and said, "for it is forbidden!" That was when we really wanted to laugh.
We were able to check in our luggage, but as we passed through security we noticed people taking off their shoes and everyone was padded down. It seemed that they were becoming increasingly more strict with us and it was not until afterwards that I told Ellen that I thought it may because of these potential terrorist attacks I saw on the news briefly. I thought back to the brief pannel discusssions on CNN and to the tidbits on SkyNews, but could not place anything that would require such bizzare behaviour.
We arrived in London and noticed that there were more police than normal patrolling the area outside Heathrow airport and to our surprised two of the guards were holding machine guns. We were a bit perplexed by the unravelling of events, but still assumed it must be something about these potential attacks. Ellen had not heard anything and I was still trying to place the clues from my unconcious together. There weren't any real news at the airport so we would have to wait until we logged onto the internet to discover more details.
We read emails from our parents and we found out that ten American airlines had bomb threats and supposedly people were going to bring the materials in through liquids. Our parents had warned us that we would not be able to bring in carryon luggage and that there could be a four hour wait at the airport. Although there were a few sensational headlines splattered around the newsagents, there was no real big news around the city. We watched the news that night, but there was only a ten minuite segment that was reviewing what we had already known about placing everything in clear plastic bags. The only new news that we noticed was that we could not even bring liquids bought at the airport onto the plane. The new catch phrase was "Whatever makes your life more pleasant and bearable, you cannot have!"
our flight was suppose to depart at 11:40am and so we arranged to be at the airport at 7:00am. I was pleasantly surprised when the whole procedure from check in to arriving in the airport lounge in the terminal only took two hours. We would occasionally check the television monitors for when we were suppose to board and to which gate we should report to. It was at 10:30am that we noticed something slightly odd. It said "New Info 12:00". I wondered aloud why they would give us new info at noon when our plane was suppose to depart 20 minuites earlier. We strolled over to the information desk where a clerk informed us that our plane would be slightly delayed and just to wait for more info. We were not worried for we thought the plane would probably only be delayed for a few hours and were relieved to think that at least we could leave that day. Boy, were we wrong.
posted by Ophelia Pace at 3:34 AM
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