Business travel. The most over-rated two words in the English language. To anyone who doesn't have to do it, business travel sounds so... "exotic". When I mention that I need to do a fair bit of travel on business, nearly everyone comments how "lucky" I am. The truth, however, is that "exotic" is hardly a word used to describe airports. And for the biz traveller, that's where you spend most of your time.
Take today. I've been called in as a last-minute replacement to serve as a "spokesperson" for a major football (soccer for ye uneducated North Americans. It's amazing how quickly one can become Eurotrash!!) tournament in Tunis. After a morning full of meetings and packing my office (due to internal restructuring, I'm moving desks again -- my fourth in nine months!), I left the office at 11 am to catch my 12:30 flight. Upon arriving at Helsinki International, the starting/ending point for most of my journeys, I discovered that the "computer system was down." Airport-speak for "your flight will be late". And it was. An hour late. Usually, a minor inconvenience, unless you're catching a connecting flight. Which, of course, I was. (Unless you're flying to Turku or Oulu or Raistaniemi, nearly everything out of Helsinki requires a connecting flight. Including Tunis.)
Upon arriving in Stockholm, I heard those words every traveller fears: "Final boarding call." Experienced travellers know that "final boarding call" really isn't final. "Final boarding call" means you still have a few minutes, but that duty-free purchase will have to wait. But you know it's time for the airport dash when you hear them call your name, or, in the case of Tunisian Airlines, when you hear them call something vaguely resembling your name... like "Mistaa Doe-OoGa-Laas Dow-suun". Final call.
The good news was I didn't miss my flight. The bad news took place the second I boarded. In Italian, they call in "molocchio". In English, we call it the "evil eye". Except in this case there was about 280 of them... staring at me in utter disgust, perhaps hatred.
"Just great," I said to myself. "I'm going to spend the next 4 hours on a plane with 140 angry Arabs." So I did the only thing I could think of in a situation like that... I started to hum "O Canada!"
After watching another episode of "mid-air mime" (Ever wonder its like to act on stage and no one pays attention?? Next time you're flying watch the flight attendants do the safety procedures. except for that one in a million passenger who hasn't yet grasped the concept of how put on a seatbelt, no one, and I mean NO ONE, watches the demo. I always make a point to appear to pay attention to the flight attendants. Let's face it, their job is hard enough. Serving drinks and the world's worst food in incredibly cramped quarters is no one's idea of a good time. And hey, who knows when they might come up with a new seatbelt design? Do you want to get caught not knowing how it works??) I settled down for a relatively uneventful flight. The real activity didn't start until we touched down. First, everyone applauded. Not sure how this tradition started, but it's strange. Then as we were taxi-ing to the terminal you started to sense the mood change. People began shifting in their seats. Eyes darted side-to-side...
For some people, the seatbelt sign being turned off is like the firing of a starter's pistol. My plane, it appears, was completely filled with these "airplane athletes". You would think that by the way people were tripping over themselves, fighting to get to the luggage stored overhead that someone yelled "fire" or "George Bush is on board" or something. Of course, we hadn't even arrived at the gate yet! And when we did, we didn't arrive at the gate at all. We all boarded the same bus on the tarmac... with the last one on the bus (yours truly) the first one off.
Nighttime in Tunis, for those who have never been here, looks a lot like any Canadian city, except with Arabic neon signs everywhere. Tunisians appear to adhere to the Roman School of Driving -- they pay little attention to things like street lights, lines on the road, or pedestrian crossings; horns are used quite liberally, as are hand gestures and other pleasantries. Traffic, as you might imagine in a small city of 5 million people, is a bit problematic at the best of time. It was raining when I arrived, turning the streets of Tunis into one giant, North African parking lot.
The drive to the hotel was very nearly as long as the flight from Stockholm.
The hotel itself is fine. I have a balcony overlooking a swimming pool and darkness which I assume to be the sea. I will never know. My schedule tomorrow has me bunkered in some room for an uncertain amount of time, meeting with journalists from all over the world, where I will tell them what I'm doing here.
Now I just need to figure it out so I can explain it to myself!
Hello,
I just wanted to say that I enjoy the article. I am doing a lot of business travel myself, so I know exactly what you are talking about. Recently I had the chance to work on a project in Puerto Rico. I live in Michigan, so naturally everyone that I talked to is drooling. And we're talking about escaping Michigan in December!
So there I am in a hotel room with ocean view, with no one to spend the time with. Every morning I woke up, take a look at the ocean, get dressed, go to work, and spend 10 hrs there. By the time I went back to the hotel, it was dark and I'm exhausted.
That's the reality of business travel. Nothing to drool about I guess..
But having that said, I did enjoy expensing money for my sushi meals..HA!
So yea, anyway, you're not alone.
cheers.
Posted by: NA | December 17, 2005 at 10:30 PM