SEATAC & THE FLIGHT

We arrived at SEATAC shortly after noon. As we departed the aircraft the stewardess handed us a blue customs and immigration form which, we learned later, you’re supposed to fill out during the flight. This meant that everyone on our flight was herded into the customs and immigration area completely unprepared. Some people filled out their forms at the booth, much to the annoyance of the customs agents. We found a small table at the rear of the room where we proceeded to lay out the forms and fill in the necessary details. However, the customs agent who controls the queue came over and urged us to fill in the forms quickly as two large flights were arriving shortly. Shoot! We were sharing a pen so we scurried up to the booths as soon as we were done. Unfortunately, we’d indicated we were travelling as a family so we each got the hairy eyeball from the customs agents. Oh, well – they let us into the country anyway!

The ticket agent in Victoria was unable to check us through to Reykjavik on Icelandair so we had to depart the secure area of the airport and head to the departures level to get our boarding passes for the next leg of the journey. That was easy, but we soon learned why it’s preferable to get checked through – we had to get into a 500+ person line to go through security again!

It was annoying to be in such a long line but it moved fairly quickly. About halfway through the “security shuffle” some women, wearing strong perfume, joined the queue. It triggered my asthma. I used my inhaler but it wasn’t working very well. I finally dodged under the ropes and moved to an area near the doors to the security hall where I could get some fresh air and watch the queue for Mom and Simone.

I joined Mom and Simone in the queue just before they entered the security barricade. I was holding my arm over my face to block the perfume and to wipe up the tears that inevitably come to my eyes during an asthma attack. This was a problem for the customs agent, who thought I was trying to hide my face. I finally turned, removed my arm, wheezed “asthma attack”, and then put my arm back up. Again, not the proper protocol but he let me through.

Once we got through security it was easy to find our departure gate. We found a table and then went in search of food. Interestingly, both Simone and I initially planned to get sushi but aborted the mission and instead went to Burger King. It was our first meal at BK and we both agree, if you want salty and greasy food, it’s not bad.

Before we knew it the afternoon had passed and we were ready to board our flight to Reykjavik. We all had aisle seats near the rear of the plane. Mom and I sat across from each other, and Simone sat a couple of seats forward. When the stewardess announced that all passengers were aboard the plane and it was ready for departure, Mom was super happy – she had two empty seats next to her. Her happiness was short-lived, however – a rather strange woman approached and, without a word, threw her belongings onto the seat next to Mom.

Mom’s seat-mate deserves special note. She was an exceptionally tall woman, thin, with curly hair that is best compared to a bramble patch. She was also extremely reticent to speak or to interact with other people at all. She reminded me a great deal of Professor Trelawny from the Harry Potter books/movies, minus the round glasses.

After take-off, Mom’s seat mate pulled out a newspaper to read. However, her manner of reading a newspaper was unlike anything we’d seen – or heard – before. She proceeded to rip each page out of the paper so she could read it individually. When she came across an interesting article, photo, or advertisement she ripped it out. She carefully input data from it into her Blackberry, then folded it and tucked it into one of the two seat-back pockets. She did this for the entire newspaper, and for the in-flight magazine as well.

Mid-flight she got up and rummaged around in the carry-on bag she’d stowed in the overhead bins. She blocked the aisle for a good 15 minutes, causing at least two stewardesses to glare at her in annoyance and three passengers to do the gotta-pee dance in the aisle. When she’d found what she needed she stepped over Mom to get back to her seat.

That’s another thing – she never asked Mom to move so she could get to the aisle. Mom would start asking “Would you like me to move?” – but by then the woman had already stepped over her into the aisle.

As the flight neared Reykjavik the woman started going through her prized clippings and sorting them into more piles. She also pulled out a couple of file folders full of other clippings. She was mid-sort when the pilots announced they were going to start the descent into Reykjavik. One of the stewardesses who had been trapped in the aisle earlier told the woman to clear up her clippings and lock the seat-back tables. It seemed the woman wasn’t going to comply so the stewardess stood by until the woman had hastily shoved all of her clippings into the two folders and put them into her handbag.

After the plane landed we all disembarked and proceeded to the customs and immigration area. We noticed, however, that Mom’s seat-mate wasn’t in the queue. A good 20 minutes passed before she showed up in the customs and immigration area. We speculated that she stayed behind on the plane to finish sorting and organizing her clippings.

After we cleared customs and immigration we headed out to the arrivals area and picked up our FlyBus tickets into Reykjavik. We got on board the bus shortly before 8am local time and enjoyed the drive from Keflavik to Reykjavik – well, we enjoyed it as much as we could, considering our bodies were telling us it was 2am.

The bus driver pulled the bus into the FlyBus terminal on the outskirts of Reykjavik and about half of the people on board got off. We stayed on board, thinking they were making some kind of connection. A few minutes later our driver got on board and ordered the rest of us off the bus. I guess the FlyBus representatives failed to mention that we all had to get off the big bus at the terminal and transfer to smaller mini-buses for the remainder of our trip into town.

After a fair bit of finger-pointing by grumpy FlyBus drivers we finally found our mini-bus and clambered on board. Ten minutes later the driver dropped us in front of our hotel. It didn’t look like much from the outside bus was very modern and funky inside. Happy days – we were finally in Reykjavik!