Fresh hell at CDG

As you may have noticed, I spend way too much time at Roissy/CDG airport. Tonight I was there for the first time since coming back from Scotland Thursday night.  Only five days, yet there was already a new addition to the ever-worsening unpleasantness of air travel. Suddenly there was nowhere to drop off a passenger with luggage. Aside from a minuscule passenger-drop-off space for taxis, surveyed by the police, the rest of the long, long terminal sidewalks (as seen right, but much dirtier) was lined with concrete wedges topped with a nasty-looking high metal fence. I guess you are supposed to drive into the underground parking lot to drop off passengers now. What fresh hell is this? (as Dorothy Parker used to say when the phone rang).

Being very Parisian, I pulled in and just double-parked, blocking some other cars. Two buses promptly parked outside of my car, blocking me in turn. There was now only an outside lane around the terminal. Someone out of sight beyond the buses began to honk. The cops looked calmly on. They're French, they understand. A French person can usually be counted on not to insist on a rule if the rule is stupid.  Soon we were all back on our way.

While looking for a photo to illustrate this post (this one is from zoopersound at flickr), I noticed that people who upload photos of the airport make it look empty and modern and glamorous. That is not my experience at all. Maybe I will take a few pics next time I go that shows my CDG with its caked-on chewing gum, uncomfortable and hard-to-find seats, heaving mobs of queuing passengers with no room to let anyone walk by, 45-minute bus transfers to another terminal, and concrete-chipped parking lots with their crottes de chien. Except for the new beautiful terminals E and F, of course! Air France flies out of those.

Comments

[Olivier de Montréal]

New panic tonight in the european sky. A runner had flashy shoes with lights. The guys of the controls thought it was a bomb.
:-/

[Linda]

Isn't CDG a nightmare? I always feel so crowded and people are always running into my ankles with their towering luggage carts.