Buns2025: Day 4 – Airports & Paris
Soundtrack: “This Flight Tonight”, Joni Mitchell
It’s a 15 hour flight from Sydney to Doha, then another 6 to Paris. I’m not sure I fully worked this out when I booked the trip, I was more just being amused that the journey started at a Charles (Kingsford-Smith) and ended at a Charles (de Gaulle). I’ve done the 18+ hour Singapore to Newark, but that was Premium Economy, where this time around it was just economy of the common variety.
Fortunately, between the early-ish night and the subsequent sleep-in, I got almost a human amount of sleep. This gave me plenty of time to pack and finish the b log, helped by a late checkout. Remembering the advice that the walk to Museum station was easier, I headed that way. Stopped for late breakfast and ended up with a large bowl of noodle soup with an entire chicken maryland on top, and it was delicious.
The walk was certainly easier for Museum station, and the station itself is quaint, feels quite old, but even though the lifts came out of warranty before they started building the Opera House, they still work. Sydney trains did still have one more prank for me, as I headed through the ticket gate it closed right after me, putting me on one side and my luggage on the other. It took a bit but I managed to lift it over the gate, just in time for the attendant to come over and let me know that if I went through the widest gate it takes a bit longer to shut. Silly me, choosing to go through the gate that was just the right width.
I was running early so had to wait in the queue to check-in for a little while, which worked out well as L messaged me about a deal where I could get $20 USD off my food at Doha as part of some Virgin-Qatar codeshare deal. Not as good as the old Singapore deal where with the right flights I’d be able to get like 20-40 SGD vouchers for duty free, but a discount is a discount. After checkin I wandered the airport a little (weirdly going through security there was a hot spot on my shin, normally it’s my armpits) and found myself sat next to a bunch of young travellers playing Uno. They seemed to have their own crazy house rules that intrigued me, where playing multiple cards of the same number was allowed. I was curious enough to ask them about it, turns out that’s just how they roll. They find it weird that there are folks who don’t have that rule.
After boarding, a minor miracle happened (two if you count taking off and flying smoothly through a thunderstorm). I’m not sure if it was because I presented the crew with a big bag of chocolates (something I’ve been doing each flight, as I figure air crew are way under-appreciated for what they have to deal with) or if it was my Velocity Silver status, but they offered me an entire row to myself up the front of economy. Me being me, I was briefly reluctant to take it, I don’t give the chocolates expecting any reward. But I then figured it would allow the other two people on my current row to have a free seat and a bit more space, so I accepted for the common good. I don’t know if there was something that meant the front economy seats cost more and no one bought them, or if the booking computer was being weird, but most of the section seemed to only have 1 person on each row.
Fifteen hours is a serious chunk of time to be stuck in a metal tube 36,000 feet above the world. Enough time to do some dozing, watch 4 movies, eat a couple of times, and still have moments of bored reflection spent using Qatar’s wifi and phone scrolling. Watched a Chinese movie, The Dumpling Queen, which was pretty good, certainly made me want some dumplings and maybe go back to Hong Kong. Was a bit sad in places, and right now I’m tired and emotional enough to feel it. After that I went for the feel-good pick me up Welcome to the Jungle, nothing too challenging. Finished off with the double of The Equalizer 2 and 3, only because I noticed a fellow traveller on a previous flight watching one of these and it looked okay, it’s Denzel afterall. The acting okay, the plots were formulaic, but they helped mark some time. It was certainly good to be able to lie across the row for a while, even if it always ends up with one of the seat joins digging into my ribs. The flight otherwise was finer, though the pilot was taking no chances with turbulence, and it felt like the seatbelt sign was on for most of the flight, so each time it went off there was a mad scramble for the toilets.
Doha airport has won a bunch of awards for it’s shopping and overall experience. My first impression was that they make you walk a heck of a long way getting off the plane, following the Transfers signs for what felt like a kilometre, before having to go through security all over again. Either our pilot got shafted on their parking spot, or they just want everyone to get their daily steps. No idea why they designed the airport like that. I also get that some airports make you go through the security stuff again, but I’m not a fan, when I’m standing there and I’ve had no opportunity to come to possess anything dangerous since I last went through security — aside from what I’ve eaten, all I’ve acquired is a pair of ear-plugs, some plane socks, a sleep mask, and a little toothbrush.
Qatar airport is full of those high-end stores that frequent airports these days. I do wonder sometimes, how many people, while strolling through an airport, suddenly feel the need to purchase a Rolex, limited-edition designer handbag, or insert exclusive famous brand luggage here? Sure, I’d love to have the kind of money that would let me do that, but even then I doubt I would just find myself dropping five or six figures on duty free baubles. It’s definitely not my world. I wonder how many sales each day these stores need to make to break even, as the overheads and running costs can’t be cheap.
However they also have 2kg buckets of Tang, just in case travellers need the extra sugar and vitamin C.
After surveying food options I ended up a Wagamama. I was feeling like something Asian, and while sushi would have been my first pick, I didn’t spot anyone with this. Ordered the teriyaki lamb as I don’t think I’ve ever seen that on a menu before. I was imagining some meat slices done just right and full of flavour. What I got was a bowl full of rice, an okay side salad, and some stringy over-cooked and under-flavoured pulled-meat. I ordered the dessert gyoza, apple and cinnamon flavoured, and they were not too bad, tasty filling but the wrapping was a little tough. I get that airport food isn’t always the best, but the best thing about the overall disappointment was the $20 discount. (I just looked at what it ended up costing me after the discount and it was still $30 AUD. I’m never eating Wagamama again: at that price it must be one of the most disappointing food experiences of my life.)
As I sat, tired and with abused taste buds, I concluded that airports are full of assholes, and likely the only groups that are less than 50% asshole are the folk working there, and aircrew. At least 90% of passengers in transit are definitely assholes: whether it’s the overly critical, the ones who can’t walk straight, those who have to stop in the middle of everything and play with their phone, the disorganised who place what they need at the bottom of their case, the overpackers with their body-bag sized carry-on, the folks who are just tired and sore and inpatient, or the folks who wheel their trolleys right up to the edge of the baggage return and block everyone.
The second leg to Paris was also uneventful, though I didn’t manage to score a row to myself. Watched a French movie, Rapaces I think it was called, a thriller about investigative crime journalists. I think I might have watched something else, but by this stage I was getting a tad tired. Heading East to West, I’m following night time across the world, chasing the moon.
Landed in a fog, literally and metaphorically. Twenty-one hours flying, plus another 6-8 loitering in airports, I hit a point where I just crave outside fresh air. At least at Charles de Gaulle a large chunk of the transit happens via travelator, including the really springy spongy one. At customs my Australian passport didn’t work on the scanning machine, so I’m now currently British. My baggage eventually appeared and I then managed, with some perseverance, to find the airport train that would take me into the city.
Paris. The home of French people that apparently even other French people don’t like. The City of Light, birthplace of the guillotine, inspiration to the post impressionists, and also the setting of a Baz Luhrmann movie. In spite of all these things, here I am. On a foggy and cold Sunday morning, way too early, after not enough sleep.
I know I’ve got a little behind on this blog, as it’s now Tuesday morning, and I’m sipping a café latte next to the Musee d’Orsay, after two days of doing all the things until I literally drop into bed. Today should be a little slower (heh, I said that about yesterday too) so will hopefully get all caught up at some point.
