October 14th, 2005
As I sit here typing this, I have just finished talking to my wife. Aeroflot has cancelled today's flight to Moscow, and she must wait until tomorrow to continue her journey!
So now she is sitting waiting out a 24-hour layover in Toronto!
And she is bored.
Heavens, I can understand that: I've done a fair bit of traveling myself in the the last year, and there is nothing worse than sitting with a novel you've read 1/2 of in one sitting, and just can't read anymore. Not hungry or thirsty, but not yet interested in knocking back a few drinks to grease the rails ... and although one could just do more shopping at the duty free or those little stuffed-animal-and-T-shirt stores, one's carry-on bags have swelled to their full size already; any new purchases would pose trouble for the Jet Set Traveler who wants to stay sleek and mobile. And, worst of all, it is too early (wherever in the world your body's internal clock happens to be) to sleep.
So there she sits in Toronto bored silly, and here I sit in Vancouver celebrating the first day of my vacation by sleeping in until a ridiculous hour, reading, and drinking mass quantities of coffee; and I remain little able to help her through her long boring sojourn—just talking to her on the telephone.
You know about Pearson International Airport? I've been through there quite a few times myself, and I have to say that there is nothing particularly ... er ... flashy about it. Oh sure, there are the fast food joints and the gift stores, just like every other airport of its size. But there's also a sense of practicality about Pearson that you don't get from a lot of other airports: Oh, say, like Vancouver International Airport—an equally busy airport, by the way. But at Pearson there is a no-nonsense grey colour to the walls and a layout that maximizes efficiency for the traveller. It's an airport that doesn't fuck around with walls covered with native Indian art or a groovy lights-and-sounds attempt at modern interactivity that looks more like a 1960s science fiction theme ride than a walkway between terminals (um, for example, like Chicago O'Hare or SeaTac in Seattle).
And so to the busy traveler passing through Pearson there is a silent appreciation that these Ontarians are Busy People and need a sensible airport just as much as they need sensible footwear. But to the Unlucky-in-Layover folks—like I've been, and like my wife is right now—there is little solace offered by Pearson.
Aeroflot: You bastards!
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