Hurry up and wait
Travel, they say, broadens the mind. I think what the ubiquitous "they" mean by this is that experience of another culture, geography, or language can give us a different perspective on who we are and where we come from, not to mention first hand experience of the simple but profound truth that the way we live our lives is not the only way. 
But I'm pretty sure that "they" are not talking about modern air travel. Unless by "broadening the mind" they mean "learning to accept boredom and discomfort as the norm".
A guy I used to work with years ago who had his pilot's license once told me that flying with a commercial airline was like being cattle, that is, not really like flying at all.
I rather pragmatically pointed out that as long as I got to my destination safely, and no one was planning on turning me into a beef pattie once I got there, that that was just fine by me, and I've been of much the same opinion ever since but my recent trip to Auckland had me wishing for a decidedly less bovine experience.
It started well. I got to the airport in plenty of time. No unfortunate beeping at the x-ray and metal detector phase and then there you are in the departure lounge.
Departure lounges sound infinitely more glamorous than they actually are. For some reason to me the term conjures up images of women in pillbox hats having their cigarettes (which they smoke inside) lit for them by men who look like Don Draper, who may or may not be sipping a martini and for whom the question "business or pleasure" might well be a valid one.
However as anyone who has been within cooee of an actual departure lounge knows, these are clearly the lunatic imaginings of a fevered mind. Departure lounges, like any holding pen for humanity, are uniformly uninspiring. The exist as a place to wait. It may be at an airport but it has much in common with a doctor's waiting room, though at least at the clinic you don't have to take your own magazines.
My flight was delayed by nearly an hour and a half. There weren't enough seats in the "lounge" so people had to sit on the floor, or lean in a decidely uncasual manner. Time, goes by so slowly, and time can do so much...like make you recite lyrics to random songs in your head, or fantasise about setting fire to your fellow traveller's godawful red acrylic tiki-themed jersey (my god, that thing was ugly, pilled and screaming out for a mercy killing).
Because you're all just waiting for something to happen. Stuck. Unable to leave, not moving further in your journey, basically wasting a reasonable chunk of your day amongst people you don't know, in an environment you don't particularly like. And the best part is, when you've finished waiting and something actually does happen? You get to move from one confined space you can't leave into a smaller confined space that you can't leave, so that you can do some more waiting to arrive at your destination.
Moo. I am cattle, hear me release methane gas into the atmosphere.
But, you know, I got to my destination eventually. Auckland, balmy and warm. It was a great relief to be there after all the waiting. At least, it was until the airport bus that comes "every 15 minutes" turned out to be as real as Santa and Jordan's boobs, so not at all.
Forty minutes of waiting for a bus and I'd had all the waiting that I could manage for the day. By the time I got into my hotel room it had taken me six hours from door to door for a trip from Christchurch to Auckland. This seems kind of nuts...and yet I seriously doubt that it is the worst travel story this week, let alone ever.
So, have you ever had a painful travelling experience where you did more waiting than travelling? Is there any way to improve the depressing atmosphere of the departure lounge? Is the "hurry up and wait" thing just a frame of mind, and should we all be a bit more 'zen' when we travel?
I don't know if I have it in me but maybe some of the rest of you have tips on how to achieve a less grumpy demeanour in situations like this.
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Big tick for the Unchained Melody reference. Big cross for missing the apostrophe in "fellow traveller's god-awful red acrylic tiki-themed jersey". Maybe he/she was being ironic, or simply from Gore.
Too many travel nightmares to talk about, but yes, you definitely have to take the zen approach (and always take a book/sudoku/crossword). No use getting all Easyjet customer and staging a chav tanty mid-airport. T'will only get you led firmly away by security and placed in a small, windowless room.
My most entertaining journey was Wellington to Blenheim (Koromiko actually) in a four seater Cessna of some variety, during gale force winds. Whilst I love exciting rides (car, plane, rollercoaster etc), the bouncing became rather distressing to my stomach.
I reckoned I was about two more bounces away from "Breakfast, the sequel, featuring diced carrot that I swear I haven't eaten". We hit the ground (literally) in Blenheim, bounced a few times, went straight off the end of the runway to the point where we nearly ended up in a back lawn. The pilot apologised profusely, and flights were cancelled for the rest of the day. My green self then had to spend a day working in Picton. Oh my, the joys of it :-)
In general I notice the time travel phenomenon. A one hour flight turns into a 40 minute shuttle ride, and hour to check in, an hour and twenty minutes on the plane, twenty minutes to get your bag, then forty minutes on a shuttle to somewhere. Hang, how long would it take to have driven here?
I once spent 6 hours sitting in a train just outside of Taumaranui on what would have been a 4 hour car journey but turned into an epic 12 hours by train. With 2 kids. and no food. and blocked toilets. They never had the smarts to bus everyone to their destination..or even take us to Taumaranui. We sat at Owhango..which has nothing going for it but a pile of stones to play with. Been reluctant to use the train ever since.
I was fortionate enough to travel by car to Auckland on Sunday. After finally arriving to our destination, I wanted to make sure we knew where our hotel was before going to the supermarket for some snacks, wine etc... (always cheaper than the mini bars). Our hotel was smack bang in the middle of the viaduct, looked easy on a map on how to get there!!! But alas finding the hotel was the easy part the mishap was finding a SUPERMARKET!!! Coming from the Waikato most of our supermarkets are in single buildngs with huge signage stating exactly what it is. In Auckland we found most if not all of the supermarkets are inside malls with no signage on the outside saying we are in here.... How frustrating this was to not be able to find one of the most common stores every town/city has? Anyway, we eventually stumbled across one after asking approx 4 people for directions and driving for 30 odd minutes. At least my night at the Hilton made it all worth while, great views of Queens Wharf and lucky enough to view the Pacific Princess Cruise Ship take off on her journey. Bon Voyage!
40 hours door-to-door Christchurch > Auckland > Fiji > LAX > Heathrow > Frankfurt > Duesseldorf. Sucked. Fell asleep at the dinner table in Germany. Got confused by German bedding & spent the night with cold toes. Had to start school the next day. 3 days later my grandmother in NZ died (no, I didn't come home, and in the 7 weeks between the funeral & my return, my parents lost the recording of the funeral).
Loved the exchange trip overall, but given the choice now of saving $500 & having all those stopovers, or spending the cash for a semi-direct flight through Asia, I'd go with Asia. Though going through LAX at the time meant we had a 40kg baggage allowance instead of 20kg if we'd gone via Singapore. Some of us had lots of souvenirs!
Reminds me of getting back from the UK last time. Sleeping at luton Airport waiting for a 7am connecting flight to Istanbul (yes, SleazyJet). If you could call passing out with exhaustion while trying to watch bags sleeping. At least there was two of us and we could take turns. So, skip to the end, getting from Ipswich to Dubai, via london, Luton and Istanbul took us about 24+ hours. Thanks Dr Beeching for closing the rail lines! We could have driven that distance faster.
A recent Chennai to Hong Kong flight was my worst ever. Only 5 hours, but it left at 3am and involved Cathay Pacific reclining seats that went back way too far, to the point that i had 10cm between my face and the chair in front! Only time I’ve ever experienced claustrophobia. Still had 17 hours back to Wellington once I got off as well! Shudder.
Thankfully I am lucky enough to have very few travel disaster stories except for.... The gentleman who decided it was necessary to recline his seat back as far as it would go into my lap on the short flight from wgtn to akl. After asking him if he would mind putting it back up he ignored me... so i blew on his balding head for the entire journey. And then there was not last sunday but the sunday before.... the morning after my wedding, my husband and I were at the airport checking in for our honeymoon in Vanuatu only to learn that his passport expires at the end of August... making is 10 days out from being valid for 6 months on arrival. After Air New Zealand kindly tried ringing immigration Vanuatu to see if it was okay for him to fly with that passport they couldnt get hold of anyone since it was crazy early on a sunday morning. So the nice man at the ticketing booth changed our flights free of charge which was really nice. Definitely not Air NZ's or the airports fault in any way... but it would have been nice to know this clause when booking tickets on their website and even after reading the ticket details and the destination info etc online we still had no idea that this clause exists. Anyhoo, 16 more days until I'm in Vanuatu with my husband on honeymoon take 2.
Too many bad travel experiences. As far as waiting goes, the worst wait was on my way to Samoa for work. We had a stop off in Nukualofa on the night of the King of Tonga's funeral. When we arrived the Air Force Boeing was on the runway waiting for Helen Clark and various important people. And so we too had to wait. If you think a departure lounge is bad, try the transit lounge at Nukualofa. Dripping air conditioning units doing nothing for the heat but leaving large puddles on the ground, poor lighting, no food or drink... 2.5 hours felt like a whole lot more.
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I once had a journey with reminded me of the movie Planes, Trains & Aotomobiles. I was still living in the UK and had gone to Minneapolis on a business trip with a colleague. We were due to fly home to London via Philadelphia. First our plane to Philly was delayed, then cancelled. We rushed to try to get on another flight....which was delayed. Arrived in Philly 40 mins after our connecting flight had left, with only what we stood up in as our bags had been checked in right through to London. The airline said they could get us on a flight the next day at 5pm and would put us up in a hotel. Unfortunately they thought we were a couple so booked us one room! Thank god for the company credit card. After a very pleasant if unexpected day sightseeing in Philly, we flew back to London to the announcement that our bags had not been loaded onto the plane but would be arriving on the next flight...in three hours. I eventually got home 25 hours late. US Air? oh yep totally US!