Friday, March 21, 2008

Finally

...made it. Writing this from duty free. The only way I can miss this flight is if I fall asleep because I'm just blooming exhausted. Believe me, that isn't far-fetched. Woman at the check-in counter described me as a model passenger. "If only they were al llike you." All my luggage was within the weight allowance, I had my passport at the ready, I knew where I wanted to sit. It took me precisely five minutes to check in. Yes, I deserve a medal.

Let's not even get into the lack of order, and the provenance of chaos in the early queuing stages. Nigerians don't know how to queue. To say the concept is alien to them is misleading, because at least aliens live in the same universe as us. Queuing and Nigeria are not even light years apart.

My hand luggage was given the Tel Aviv treatment. It was swabbed for all sorts of incendiary, fissile, explosive material possible, I'm sure. Basically, I forgot a half drunk bottle of water in it. Silent alarm bells obviously rang, discreetly, and lights flashed in some ante-chamber. In Tel Aviv they swab all your luggage about three times before check in. Heavy. Off to board.

2 comments:

Talatu-Carmen said...

what an adventure... enjoy the flight and the vacation!

Morountodun said...

You aren't being very fair to Nigerians. Its the penalty of disorder that makes us act well and we only perform badly if we recognise their are no implications for bad behaviour.

I remember reading somewhere of a blogger's experience of boarding a flight to Lagos and everyone was orderly and excellently behaved at heathrow but once they disembarked at MMA the fun began...