Scribblings of Robs

16 Dec 2009

Average Girl: Airport

Today both my parents left for different parts of the world. My Dad was leaving at 11 am and my Mum was leaving at 5pm

… Cape Town International airport had just undergone a major revamp.

I dropped my Dad off. Then went home with Mum to pack her cases.

Mum’s case broke. Oh crap. Went to Sportmans warehouse to find big,ski, duffel bags. We needed two.

After digging in the back for several years, the shop assistant (who was very kind by the way) could only find one. There was however another one across town in Rondebosch. Ok we had enough time we could make it.

We got there, got the bag and got back home.

Then the scale broke. Which is a pain. My family loves to live on the edge with the baggage allowance: a scale is therefore a necessity for pleasant travel. (SAA had also once charged me R500 for being 1.3 kilos overweight: another average day).

I got a call from my agent round about this time. I had a wardrobe call at 4. Impossible I cried… she managed to get it moved to 5.30pm. She said I had to get there by then, as production was leaving at 5.30pm.

So got packed and off to the airport. Thank you, Cape Town home time rush hour.

Finally got to airport, only to be absolutely dumbfounded by the labyrinth of parking we now had to navigate.

My usual parking area was closed off…. so I headed for Parkade 2.

Some idiot had put all the terminal signs the wrong way round. So my mum and I spent near on 20 mins wondering around Parkade 2… getting exceptionally more stressed. It was very frustrating seeing the departure terminal… being told to go up another floor and getting nowhere near said departure terminal. Eventually we found a security guard and he kindly showed us where to go.

Got bags shrink-wrapped and then off to check in. Thank goodness my mum had checked in online…. or so we thought.

A large Asian tour group had arrived before us. There were too many of them to check through the normal counters, so they were checking them through the online counters. This resulted in some really fed up passengers, who ended up waiting longer than people who hadn’t checked in online.

I unfortunately couldn’t stay with my Mum, as I had to be in Salt River… in about 15 mins. Said a teary goodbye and was off.

Walked straight past the parking pay station. Realized I hadn’t paid when I got to car, 2 floors above. Then lost ticket. Found ticket and by this stage had lost money to pay for ticket (jeans have too many dam pockets).

Got ticket sorted, jumped into my car and sped towards exit (had 5 mins to make Salt River… ha ha). In my hurry I drove straight past the parking ticket machine and waited patiently at the boom while cars stacked up behind me.

Oh I realized.

Got some filthy looks from harassed people in x5′s ( they had probably been lost in the Parkade by the looks of it) and managed to reverse back to the ticket machine.

Ticket in: Boom Up: Light speed engaged (which is pretty fast for a Yaris).

Of course nothing goes smoothly, when you need it to.

Hurtling along N2 when all of a sudden … I see traffic….and what? Why are cars reversing to the nearest off-ramp?

Turns out, there was a very bad accident on the N2. So I was stuck. I sat there for 20 mins and didn’t move. I didn’t have the producers’ number so I couldn’t phone them and my agency was closed for the day.

Finally got through and fell in the door of the wardrobe call at around 6pm.

I was asked why I had rushed as they were running an hour late.

…

At least I booked the job