At about 7:55am we were well into our descent and the first glimpse of anything other than pure darkness, fog and nothingness was the ground. We landed in zero visibility. That was pretty impressive.
Charles de Gaulle airport was a complete mess. I had a long 6.5 hour layover here and needed 4 of those hours to get my next boarding pass and deal with the French and their de Gaulle airport. How dare they not speak Latvian , Spanish or even English!?!??
The airport was dirty, with lots of construction and planned (perhaps even targeted) mass confusion... The wayfinding system here was no less than evil trickery... guiding folks up escalators with no possible way back down...a shoddy-looking construction crew had seized all of the down options, including the emergency elevator option. So we all got pushed towards the exit...sortie, indeed! Mind you - these 'folks' are people that are not interested in leaving the airport. Oh yeah - there was one way to get back in the airport - all the way outside... a long walk in sub zero temperatures and icy surfaces, then re-enter the airport fresh as though just arriving... through security. Very nicely done. It is always a nice, pleasant surprise when you have to go through additional x-ray scanning machines and be groped by hastily and weakly professionalized homeland security persons.
The airport has no shortage of refuse bins cleverly designed to look like used condoms. See pic.
At first glance I was so pleased to see Christmas being celebrated at the airport until I looked closer at this lovely ornament and understood that it was actually warning of infestation, mosquitoes, contamination, vaccinations and generally morose things. Oh well. So much for the Christmas spirit.I think I slept for 30 minutes at the Air Baltic gate after nearly giving up hope for all humanity...
Air Baltic lifted off in a timely mid-afternoon manner. On the inside of the aircraft the Air Baltic scene is pretty frantic. Everything and anything you might need to increase comfort on board is for sale... even a cup of water cannot be had without 2.50 Euro. And it seemed like most passengers were caught up in the buying and airplane shopping experience. Not just food, but candies and chocolates and Air BALTIC coupon cards, too! Lots of cash and currencies and credit cards were flashing around. The well meaning stewardesses never made it past the halfway mark of the plane to offer these sale items. In other words, half of the customers on the plane had to watch while Air Baltic swiped credit cards and raked in cash from the front half of the plane. This was a 2.5 hour flight. It was like a loud, drunken farmers market scene, except with lots of fur coats and a few well groomed pet dogs. I thought to myself - what a wonderful world.
Back in seat 15D I ate my home made peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I had lovingly prepared it with a splash of Katskills buckwheat honey on potato bread. I soaked up the phenomenon swirling about me and was duly amazed.
At the Riga airport suitcases were recovered and not a single customs or immigration official was to be found anywhere as I boldly exited the airport. A 'Baltic' taxi took us to where we needed to be (Terbates iela) for 7.65 Ls.
It was the back end of rush hour, so as far as traffic goes, no easy task. The taxi driver was Gundega Upe.
It is cold here. Snow is piled high and the streets are quite messy. This afternoon we are expecting more snow. That should add white back into the visual fold. Otherwise it is the same old slapdrankjis/slush scene.
I will provide more updates as time allows.
- the registrar of wrong
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