Since the drive to Caen took longer than expected we didn’t want to take any chances so we got up early, had some breakfast, and left the hotel at 8:30. We should return the car at 12.
The drive was really smooth, only hit traffic when we came to Paris. Took a pit stop on the way to fill up the tank. If we hadn’t gone to Bayeux, it would probably have been enough to reach the airport. Just outside the airport, we topped off the gas. Strange that such a station (which probably had almost all rental cars passing by) didn’t accept cards at the pump. The staff didn’t really speak English so it took some back and forth before I managed to fill it up and pay for it.
Except for the lack of instructions, the return of the car was smooth. Just park in a line and leave the keys inside. We got into the departure terminal and found a Transavia-staffer and asked if we could drop our bags this early. According to the boarding card, the bag drop opened 2,5 hours before takeoff, which meant 13:00, and the time was about 11:15. He said it was okay so we printed the tags and dropped off the bags, and went through security.
I feel I’m pretty good at following instructions, and since different security checkpoints are doing different things I tend to look at the instructions while moving through the line. Every other sign stated that you should put laptops, phones, and tablets into a separate bin, as well as belts and other metal objects. However, when I reach the conveyer belt at the security station, the staff tells me to put the laptop back. She said the machine was new. This kind of thing annoys me (I know, it’s silly). Terrific if I don’t have to take out my electronic devices, but please change all the signs telling me to! It didn’t help my mood that the scanning took a long time, not sure if the machine was slow or if it was because the three bags belonging to the woman in front of me had to be rescanned twice.
Anyhow, all finally got through and we went to look for somewhere to camp out until boarding, which was about three hours away. We found a corner table where we grabbed some lunch, fika, played some cards, crosswords, and take turns going around looking for some shopping. After a while, we got a message from Transavia that the flight was delayed until 16:05, which took the airport an hour to realize and update the boards. So we camped out at our corner table for some time longer.
The staff did what they could to make the boarding process as smooth as possible to minimize the delay and I ended up first in line for the back entrance. The flight itself was really uneventful, the only exciting thing that happened was that I discovered a message on the garbage bag in the seat pocket. Not the easiest handwriting to read, especially when I don’t know the language.
We landed around just about 18:45, roughly 35 minutes late. I forgot that we were landing at Terminal 2 so I was surprised how quickly we arrived at the baggage claim. I’ve also never seen so many customs officers at the same place, wondering if there was a flight from Amsterdam or something at the same time.
We swapped some luggage that had been checked in and said our goodbyes. The other three took their booked taxi back to Uppsala and I waited for the bus while watching Sirius lose to Halmstad with 1-2 on my phone. During the trip, I discovered that my internet connection at home didn’t work and I think that I now have figured out it’s the power adapter to the router that is broken. So getting a new one in the morning, hoping it’s only that.
Now, time to get some quality time with the cats and sleep in my own bed which is about twice as big as the ones at the hotel 🙂
All in all, a very successful trip, and Dad seemed very pleased.
