Monday, 14 August, St. Petersburg to Rockville, with tour of Charles De Gaulle Airport
Written 16 October 2017
Because we were still under Viking's aegis, our ride to the airport was all arranged for. Our pick-up was early, so he restaurant wasn't open yet, but we gathered in the lobby of the hotel (David and me, the Sinnetts, and a couple of other parties from our ship, all going to the airport at the same time) to find coffee and tea, pastries, fruit, sandwiches, etc. waiting for us.
At the appointed hour, a Viking driver showed up, loaded our luggage onto the bus, and ushered us onto our seats for the ride.
At the St. Petersburg airport, the decor includes life-size statues of attractive young men and women, hanging from the ceiling or lounging atop partitions, wearing airplane wings. I wish I'd gotten a photo, but my luggage was rigged for flying, and digging out the camera seemed like too much trouble. In Russia, you have to go through security just to get into the airport building, which we did before going through it again to get to the gate. And in Europe these days, when you take a computer through security, they make you turn it on to prove it's really a computer. They're happy once it lights up, but then you have to wait until it finishes booting up completely before you can reverse the process and wait while it closes down again and can be repacked (along with all your other electronics right down to readers, cameras, phones, my pocket recorder, and my fitbit).
The flight to Paris went perfectly smoothly, but when we followed the "transfers" signs far enough to come to a big board announcing gate assignments, we groaned with exasperation—that's an earlier boarding time than they told us at check-in and it's in Terminal 1! Drat, that's the heck and gone across the whole airport, is old and small, and how the heck do you get there these days? You used to take the worlds smallest and most rickety subway, but they closed that down didn't they? Maybe the newer, better subway that serves Roissypole stops there . . ."
Anyway, we trooped onward to join the long line at security. At the point where you show your passport and boarding pass to enter the security checkpoint, they waved David, Ev, and Rachel in one direction but me and the two people behind me in another, trying to keep the lines at the various security lanes equal. Getting through security took me forever. No TSA pre-check there. And people ahead of me kept misunderstanding the instructions and having to back up and go through again or reempty their pockets (sometimes more than once!), and people with metal body parts kept getting pulled aside and wanded. One group held things up while they drank the rest of their beverages (I had already emptied my water bottle in anticipation). By the time I finally got through, got the computer booted up and back down, and repacked everything. I had no idea where the others were. Big square columns completely blocked my view in the direction they had been sent, and I was pretty sure they would have finished the security check before me (for one thing, none of them had brought a computer), and time was tight for that earlier boarding time. Finally, I reverted to David's and my default, which is "meet at the boarding gate," and set off in what I hoped was the right direction.
Fortunately, I quickly picked up signs directing me toward a bus for Terminal 1, which I waited for, then boarded for the 10-minute ride across country. It was the first stop (that line only stopped three places), so I hurried inside and up the stairs, only to find that I had to go through security again! While I waited again in the interminable line (craning my neck, trying to see whether they others were anywhere in the crowd), I showed my boarding pass to an airport employee who assured me that I could in no way catch the only flight to Dulles out of Terminal 1; boarding was almost over, and I would never get through security in time. What should I do, then? Go back to Terminal 2F (whence I had just come) to talk to Air France about rebooking, he said. Just go on through this security check to get back to the bus that would take me back. Drat. Through the whole unpacking, booting up, shutting down, repacking, and back down the stairs to wait for the bus. All the while, I'm thinking, who do I know in Paris who'd put me up for the night? Françoise will be in Crete this time of year. I'm pretty sure there's only one flight a day. A hotel at Roissypole, I guess . . . I didn't have my watch on (I'd taken it off for first security check and hadn't taken the time to recombobulate everything, but I showed my boarding pass to the security guard at the bus waiting area, to make sure I was headed the right place to rebook. He looked surprised, and assured me that the Dulles flight from Terminal 1 that I had missed wasn't my flight at all. I might still be able to get back to 2F in time to catch my flight, which would leave from there. He showed me his watch and told me the original boarding time on my boarding pass was correct.
So that's where the others were—they would have checked another board, realized Terminal 1 wasn't right, and gone to the correct gate. Just then, the bus pulled up, and who should emerge from it but David, Rachel, and Ev! Stop! Go back! We're in the wrong place. Trust me on this. Everybody back on the bus! So we piled back on and rode the rest of the way around the circuit back to our starting place, where the electronic boards had miraculously corrected themselves in our absence and now directed us to the right gate, at the original boarding time. Miraculously, we didn't have to go through security again to get back into the building (that would have sunk us), and we got to the gate about halfway through boarding. Fortunately, boarding had been delayed a few minutes, and it was another Airbus 380, so boarding took a looong time. We joined the line, caught our breath, and tried to look as though we knew where we were going the whole time. They had apparently waited for me after security, but finally reverted to "meet at the boarding gate," and fortunately, the timing worked out.
In conversation since, with acquaintances in Tallahassee, I have encountered other travellers who have been misled by the electronic schedule boards at CDG; apparently, they get confused when more than one flight is headed to the same destination and sometimes swap information among entries. I've always complained it's a confusing airport, but that's taking things a little too far . . .
The flight itself was once again perfectly routine. I had time for three movies: Dr. Strange, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
It had been a long day, so on the way back from the airport, we used Carolyn's phone to call ahead for pizza, which we picked up on the way to the house.