KP in KL

The day after we returned for Bali, I left for the US at 11pm. Malaysia Airlines is a great airline to use when departing from KL, because they have a booth located at the KL Sentral LRT station where you can buy tickets, check in bags, and check in for your flight without having to worry about all that when you get to the airport. This allows you to bypass all the lines and jump right on the train and not think about anything else. Be sure to get to KL Sentral at least 2 hours before your flight though, or else you'll probably get the hairy eyeball with no explanation why from the woman who lets you into the check-in line as we did.

KLIA, or Kuala Lumpur International Airport, seems fairly new and is pretty large and easy to navigate. All the signs are in English and Bahasa, so I had no problems there. We've discovered that when going through customs there are lines longer than the Nile you have to wait in for foreigners, UNLESS you happen to be a Malaysian visa holding expat or wife of, as it was in my case. So, I'm able to go in the line of a Malaysian passport holder which always throws off the custom's agent since for some reason assume I'm not from Malaysia. This past time I felt a little tricky when the woman was trying her hardest to get it through my head before I walked up to the counter that I was in the wrong line. When I flashed her my Malaysian visa she very quickly realized that she was wrong, and rolled her eyes because this meant she had to sit down and stop talking to her friend to check my passport. I was through customs in less than 30 seconds.

Once at the gate for the plane, I looked for a place to sit. All the chairs were occupied by people sleeping, who obviously weren't on KL time. I discovered if you walk far enough there are reclining chairs with foot rests where you could get some serious napping in as many people were doing. It seemed like it was the unspoken rule that at this hour of the night in the reclining area, cell phone use was frowned upon, because I got a few frowns from those around me when I continued to flap my gums in the reclining chair, oblivious to the silence around me until I got off my phone. oops. Once on the plane, everything over the speaker is done first in Malaysian, and then repeated in English. The flight attendants are always very nice and so far the planes have been as nice as a plane could be. The food is usually descent enough, though it's always some sort of chicken with rice and something spicy. This flight I lucked out and woke up to a package full of snacks after eating a full dinner and before a full breakfast. I don't have too much to report about the flight from KL to Paris, because I slept 10 of the 12 hours. I was the best seat partner the man next to me ever had I'm sure. Now the Paris airport and trip from Paris is a whole different story. In my defense, the following pity party is not another story of User Error! This time it's all the Paris airport.

We landed in Paris at 7am Paris time, and I followed the signs from my terminal to the connecting flight terminal. Apparently 7am is too early for Parisians to work in the airport, because I could not find a single person to verify that I was going in the right direction. I still had to check in with Air France and get my boarding pass, by that's easy as pie right? After all I've done that many many times, just never in Paris and I had a whopping 3.5 hours to get it done. I thought to myself, "how hard can this really be?" All the signs were in English, and I found a restroom, so there was no reason to panic. I could and would make it to my flight with no problem I was determined. I made it to the connecting flights terminal after taking the underground tunnel for several minutes only to find no one working there. I took the tunnel back to terminal one where I started, and found one woman standing around who didn't appear to be working, but looked like she probably was supposed to be working, so I asked her where to go. She sent me back to terminal 2. So I made the trip back through the tunnel and found one man at terminal 2 finally. He said I was in the wrong place and sent me back to terminal one. I found the same woman who helped me before who then got mad at me for not being in terminal 2 as she had directed me. I had to explain to her in a fairly heated argument that I was just trying to get to Air France and get a boarding pass as before. Finally something clicked in her head I guess because she quit being mad and told me I have to leave the entire airport. By this time I'm a little nervous that I have no idea where I'm supposed to be and my multiple visits to terminal 1 and 2 have eaten away about 45 minutes of my time. Thank goodness my bag I checked back in Malaysia was going straight to Houston, or that would have been another story entirely.

I went through customs, and exited the airport. I made my way through all the families waiting to pick people up, and followed a mob of people waiting for the elevator. I was quickly shoved in the elevator in between 10 other people with their giant carts of luggage by a woman speaking French and ended up again underground, with only one woman working in the airport. She however was much nicer and was very confused about where I was supposed to go. She just kept saying I was there too early. She disappeared for a few minutes and finally returned telling me I needed to take a train to the last stop. Again I took a tunnel to the train stop, where I was squished in between many many bags and travelers speaking French. I moved with the mob when they got off the train at the last stop ten minutes down the track, up the escalator to a busier part of the airport. I followed the signs to Air France, and when I got there I gave a huge sigh of relief and told the Air France woman I needed to check in. She looked at me funny and said I was in the wrong terminal. By this time I've decided this is one time where I will not write it off as a User Error. Is it that hard to tell me where to go to check in for a flight?

Finally I made it to terminal A as I was instructed from the last Air France employee and let out another sigh of relief. My time at this point is winding down and my patience was non-existent. I went to check in at the machine to skip the line since I didn't have a bag to check. Of course there was a group of people mad because the machines were broken. So I had to stand in a very long and slow moving line to wait to get my boarding pass. After 45 minutes of waiting, an Air France employee comes and whisks away all those going to Mexico, which happened to be everyone in the line behind me, and puts them in line in front of me because they have to catch a flight at 10:30. Funny that they were in such a hurry to get them checked in when my flight left for Houston at the exact same time. The British and American people in front of me started throwing a fit and raising a ruckus with the Air France people, then tried to cut in front of them, pushing me into their line so that we all got to check in before the Mexico people, and it was just a giant mess. The British woman behind me claimed that line cutting like this happens all the time in Paris and "It's just a cultural thing. This would never happen in my country." I felt as if I was almost going to be in the middle of a riot. In the middle of all this I overheard someone say that it was a French holiday that day, making the matter even worse. While not very helpful for travelers, perhaps that explains why no one was working in the airport that morning? So I was pushed and pulled and told where to go, and pushed backwards, but finally jumped my way through the line to check in. All I wanted was a boarding pass. Is that too much to ask?

Finally I got my golden ticket and rushed through to the customs line with an hour and a half left until my flight took off. This time I had to go in the line for foreigners, and you talk about a slow line,... this one didn't move. At all. For an hour. There was one person working the customs line for French passport holders, and zero for Foreigners. As you can imagine, people were furious. We stood and didn't move for longer than you can imagine. The customs workers again would whisk people away that for whatever reason they thought they should be at the front of the line, and there the rest of us stood. This group was seriously on the verge of a riot. People were screaming, fists were pumping up in the air, fingers were pointing, and I was just waiting to be pulled in to a group of angry people and trampled. The man in front of me just kept screaming with his fist in the air, while little girl behind me said, "Mommy why don't you yell at someone?" The mother's response was, "Well, if I had someone to yell at I would but no one is working!" Finally I guess the employees got off their brunch break at 10am and started letting us through. I rushed to go through security and was greeted by a man who I am pretty sure had no idea what deodorant was. I threw my shoes on halfway without buckling them, grabbed my bag and ran to my gate. I got there with only 5 minutes to spare and was greeted with the same orderly looking chaos. No one knew where they were supposed to board, and all the Air France people kept changing line locations and trying to move people even though no one could hear them. Long story not so short, I made it onto the plane after 3 hours and 25 minutes of running around all of the Paris airport.

The flight was filled with mostly Parisians speaking only French. The man next to me was a photographer at the World Cup, so I got to preview his images from the field level as he edited them. The food on the flight was good, and they served French bread and butter and cheese with each meal. The high school kids congregated at the back of the plane where the Hagendaz ice cream was sitting, and the girls beside me reminded me once again that there are fewer and fewer women everyday who shave their legs. I watched a few shows on the TV, and busted out my Sudoku book for a while when I was knocked out of my intense concentration by the tray of food the flight attendant dropped down my back. That was really minor compared to the time I had at the airport, so when the flight attendant was apologizing profusely in French, I assured her it was no problem.

A little over 9 hours later I landed in Houston. I was greeted by my mother who I was relieved still only spoke English, and was reminded how clean the streets were here in Texas. After telling this long story to Paul, he told me "Oh I talked to a few people today. All of them said to never fly through Paris." I guess that was a lesson I had to learn from experience. Since then Paul's been getting along fine as a "Single Mom" as he calls it since he is now responsible for all the house duties as well as work, and I've been more busy than I thought here in Katy. Some very very interesting fishy things have been going on in KL with a certain neighbor, but it looks like it's a story that might be better off shared at a later date. I'm going to have to leave you hanging.