Friendless in Montreal or It's About Time You've Got Mail
Some people have been complaining that I have been somewhat quiet as far as
tales of air travel go. Others regard this as one of life's small mercies.
I could say this is merely because I haven't been in an American Airlines
lounge for a bit, but in actual fact I have been meaning to write an email
for some time. My last attempt was thwarted by the hard drive on my (new)
laptop deciding that storing information was too much like hard work, and
it would prefer to just sit there and spin, which it proceeded to do for so
long it got dizzy and lost all my data, including the beginnings of a
mighty fine email about catching the train up to London and making use of
the time to start writing an email. The train journey then ended, as did
the development of said email, until it went to the great big bit bucket in
the sky, never to be seen again. As that was only about 2 weeks ago, it
still doesn't excuse the somewhat expansive intervening silence.
Doormen and bellboys are the bane of the traveller who has just got off a
plane from a country other than the one they have just pulled up to a hotel
in. They expect tips. And the traveller has either got absolutely no money,
or has fallen foul of the little known airport ATM conspiracy, in which the
ATMs are designed to only issue notes of the highest possible denomination.
Therefore, the aforementioned traveller is put in the awkward position of
either not tipping, giving away two week's salary, or somewhat sheepishly
pulling out a couple of pounds and saying, "Here, add that to your
collection of useless money that clueless overseas travellers have given
you in an attempt to stave off some sort of embarrassment." I took the
first option on arrival at my hotel in Montreal. If I need an excuse other
than that I'm simply doing my best to reinforce the image of Australians as
mingy people who don't tip (thereby alleviating the need of all my
countrymen to ever tip) I could say it was simply because I had already
suffered the consequences of not tipping (namely, no service.) This
however, I feel, was not due to my lack of tipping, but rather to my
ability to slow down a queue. When I arrive at an immigration queue at an
airport, I carefully survey the queues, and pick the shortest. At this
point the queue ceases to move, while all queues around me accelerate. Yes,
I know you all think it happens to you too, but I can be the first off the
plane and the last through immigration - particularly in Chicago. I had had
a significant triumph in Montreal, after switching queues 3 times, I did
manage to get through immigration slightly before I would have if I had
stayed in the queue I was originally in. But if I'd stayed in that queue it
would be ignore all of the desks with no-one standing in front of them.
Somehow the topic of arriving at Montreal airport came up in discussion
with the people I had travelled to Montreal to see, and one of them said,
"When ever I come in I always go to the queue on the far right, because
they always have two people for each queue on the right, and they often
only have one for a queue on the left." Needless to say, I can attest to
the truth of the second half of that statement.
So this was Wednesday, Thursday was meetings in a building which had the
entrance blocked with a sign in French explaining why, and quite possibly
where the alternative entrance was. That's one of the things I like about
travelling to French speaking countries. It reminds you that there's more
to speaking the language than being able to say, "Je ne parle pas
Francais." But I got in there, and had my meeting with a number of French
Canadians, who fortunately had business cards or I would still be wondering
what their names were, but who were very friendly, and full of suggestions
of what to do while I was in Montreal. (I am currently undergoing that
feeling of how will I ever the survive the pins and needles in my leg
caused by sitting with my leg crossed over my knee to balance the laptop
where you know it will all be over quicker if you wiggle your toes but you
are just too chicken to wiggle your toes and then you do and the most
incredible sensations flood through your leg and you think cor, I should do
that again, and you do, but by now the blood is flowing through your leg
again and the result is pretty disappointing, and fortunately now it's all
over, because the plane is about to board, and there is nothing worse than
when you actually have to get up and walk and you can't feel your ankle.)
I'd mentioned that I would be spending Friday working from my hotel room,
and as I was bidding farewell to them, one did give me a very serious
suggestion that I should not work on Friday, but rather should explore the
city. Thinking that maybe I should change jobs and get him as boss, I
ignored his advice, and spent Friday sat in front of my computer, but took
up his advice on Saturday.
(If there seems to be bit of a break in the train of thought, that's
because my PC has once again rebelled against the idea of me sending an
email and destroyed another hard drive. After days of being fixed, it still
locked up on me twice as I just tried to boot it, so should this email make
its way to the big bit bucket in the sky, I was going to say just remember
it's the thought that counts, but instead I'll have to say just imagine
that if you got an email from me which didn't really reach you [because
after all you are imagining this so it doesn't actually have to be logical]
it would say that you should remember it's the thought that counts, but of
course it's hard to remember things which haven't happened, [although you
can remember things like dreams which haven't happened, and then sometimes
you can't tell if it happened or you dreamt it {but I think that's
different}] so imagine you remember that you didn't get the email but I was
thinking of {and during this sentence this PC got so so so close to become
a pile of shards of screen and glass and silicon due to an [accidental, of
course] collision with the floor followed by some temporary blindness from
myself during which time I felt around for it with my shoes after which it
all got too much for me and I just wanted to see how small the pieces could
get, and this sentence may well start recursing [something similar to my
feelings towards the PC at the moment] as all of this happened once again
between the o and the l of collision above} sending you an email which
expressed the fact that in the hypothetical instance of you receiving said
email it would have informed you that the thought of you receiving said
email was important, and so if this PC continues on like this and you
actually do get an email saying it was the thought that counts you'll know
what it's all about.)
Saturday dawned bright and early, and sometime after that I got up and went
out in search of breakfast and all things Montrealean.
Interestingly, I was continuing this email about a month and a half later,
and had just got to the point of saying that the PC had behaved pretty well
in the meantime, when it locked up again and I lost everything I'd said
about it working very well. Unbelievably, a week after that last attempt,
it locked up during the last sentence. I then typed another sentence, at
which point it locked up again and I had to reset it all and I lost the
last sentence.
The attempts above, were made in my favourite lounge of all time, the
American Airlines lounge in JFK Airport in New York. I was there, instead
of being in the BA lounge two days earlier, due to the chaos being caused
after the attack on the World Trade Centre. I was in New York at the
MasterCard offices in Purchase, about 40 miles or so outside of Manhattan,
waiting for a bus to come and pick up all of our business group to take us
off to a place called Mohonk, up in the mountains further north of New York
state for a team building event, when the news began to filter through that
a plane had flown into the World Trade Centre. I was thinking a Cessna type
plane, as were most of us, and then there was news that it was a second
plane, and then that it was a big commercial plane. It took a long time for
us to get around to considering that it could be a passenger plane. From
the top of the MasterCard building, the two towers could be seen looking
like two massive chimneys. Things were all thrown into confusion as to
whether or not we would go on our team building or not. People began to be
concerned about friends and relatives who worked in the city, and as we
clustered around TVs and radios, the news that the first tower had come
down came through. As we looked out at the city in somewhat disbelief, the
view of the second tower became obscured by the clouds of dust and smoke,
and when it cleared, the tower wasn't there. In the end, it was decided
that we would go up to Mohonk, as we had hotels there, and there was the
need to find all of us who came from Europe, and those who couldn't return
home to Manhattan, some place to stay.
Mohonk was a complete contrast. It was a really beautiful spot, quiet, with
walks up a hill and around a lake. It was spectacular, and a world away
from what was going on just before hand. 
We had a somewhat surreal team
building exercise - subdued, and with people's minds on other things. It
got to Thursday, and for those of us who had to fly back home, our
attention turned far more to what was going on with planes. At that stage,
the airports were still shut, and after phoning British Airways, the first
flight I could get confirmed on was almost a week later. We returned to
Purchase, and immediately waitlisted ourselves on as many flights as
possible, and watched the news to see what was happening. The rumours were
going back and forth as to how BA was dealing with it, how they were
allocating seats and so on. Life was a bit stressful and a bit of a muddle
as we tried to sort things out - lots of calls to BA, lots of time on hold
being told they would phone us, lots of time watching the tele to try and
work out if planes were flying, and so on. In the end, on Saturday night,
one of my colleages phoned to see what was happening, and then asked the
travel agent if they could check if there were flights on any other
airlines. He got a flight on American Airlines, as did another colleague,
and phoned me, and asked me if I wanted to - they were leaving in about 20
minutes. I ran upstairs, got on the phone and booked myself on the flight,
then threw all my stuff in my suitcase (including my pocket knife of
course), raced downstairs, checked out, waited for a confirmation fax in
order to get us into the airport, jumped in a car, and realised that I was
on the flight before the rest of them, so all the way down we were
rearranging flights, phoning people to say we were on our way and so on. In
the end, after a lack of visible security at the airport, I ended up back
in the American Airlines lounge, where I made another attempt to continue
this email, but with very little luck. As we boarded the plane, the pilot
was at the gate and looked at each of our passport photos and us, and
confirmed we were who we said we were. Then we were told that all our hand
luggage had to go in the overhead lockers, and that we wouldn't be allowed
to get out of our seats without first getting the permission of a flight
attendent. Including going to the toilet. Then a call came over the PA -
Could passenger Jonathan Main please go to the front door of the aircraft.
Great. Just the sort of thing you want to hear. So I made my way up there
with a little bit of trepidation - what had they just found in my luggage?
But all it was, was I had upgraded from economy to business class in the
lounge and the paper work had not all gone through OK and they just wanted
to check my receipt. That was a bit of a relief. It was even more of a
relief to get home.
So returning to the start of the email, before I started getting on planes
and what have you with legs and PCs which wouldn't work, I was heading out
into Montreal, up the mountain (after which Montreal is named), to a
Picasso exhibition at the art gallery, and
finally ended up at the Old Port to watch a fireworks display (it was the
festival of fireworks). It was here, surrounded by crowds of couples, that
I sympathised with Bridget Jones (whose diary I was about to purchase the
next day at Montreal Airport) about "smug marrieds," leaving me feeling
somewhat friendless and vowing never again to be content in my couplehood
to the disregard of others around me (which I think lasted until I saw
Felicity again.) Montreal was a great place, and deserves more written
about it, which indeed probably would have been, had not PC's conspired
against me, and more significant events overtaken the flow of words.
So, happy birthday to all whose birthdays have occured since last I said
happy birthday to them, and hope you are all well.
Jonathan
For the confused amongst you - the trip to Montreal took place over the 17-20th of July 2001. The trip to New York and Mohonk was the 9th - 16th of September 2001. The email got sent in a timely fashion on the 30th of October 2001.
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© Jonathan Main 2001