It's Me, Sara Louise

The Boyfriend was nervous about the drive to Nice Airport. Marseille Airport is much closer to us, but our flight was out of Nice, two and a half hours away. Normally, not a problem, but I’m guessing he was a little worried about his first big trip. Since we needed to be at the airport at 3:45 (three hours ahead of flight time, playing by the bajiggty rules of international travel) and had to stop to get petrol first, The Boyfriend wanted to make sure we were on the road by 12:45.

Fun.

We pulled into the long term car park a little after 3am. Everything was quiet and empty. It felt like we were miles away from the terminals and since shuttle buses don’t run at 3am, we set off for a long walk dragging our 30kg of luggage. Don’t you just love the sound of luggage wheels rolling on asphalt cutting threw the night air? It’s very soothing.

This is when The Boyfriend asked which terminal. Huh, don’t know. I checked the itinerary print out and it said nothing about the terminal. Since it was in French I decided to have The Boyfriend double check. Nope, nothing about the terminal. Guess time. Let’s see, Air France, it’s the main airline here, so it must be Terminal 1. Yes, yes, Terminal 1. Logical right?

Off we went, walking F-O-R-E-V-E-R. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was a little over a mile to get to Terminal 1. At least all that fresh night air and the grating sound of the luggage wheels had us feeling much more lively.

When we got to the terminal, the doors were locked. What?

“It’s normal”, according to The Boyfriend.

Hmmm, interesting. Never come across that before.

By the time we walked around to the other set of doors they were being unlocked. I guess 3:20am is opening hour at Nice Airport.

Took a quick look at the departure board. Why isn’t our flight here? Why aren’t any Air France flights here? Because you guessed the wrong terminal you idiot. Cue Gallic huffing and puffing from you know who.

Back into the night air, dragging that damn luggage, up that freaking hill again (oh, did I not mention there is some strange hill at Nice airport. Why is there a big hill at an airport? I don’t know but I’m thinking about writing a letter. Not sure to who but I’m writing one).

But check this out, after close to a two mile, 30kg dragging, 3am walk, we arrived at Terminal 2 at 3:45am, right on time. Am I good or what? You know who’s not good? The ticket agents who don’t think they need to start work at 3:45am even though the passenger’s itinerary clearly states to be at the airport for check in three hours ahead of schedule for their 6:45am flight.

I guess I could have set my alarm for 1am instead. Thanks Air France.

After sitting around for an hour, and listening to lots of huffing and puffing, we finally got checked in and headed to security. We were the first ones there. And the doors were locked. The security checkpoint was being setup for the day. Isn’t that weird? At least I got to dazzle them with my security checkpoint skills. It seemed like such a waste. There isn’t much motivation to hurry when you’re the only people there. But I’m sure I set the gold standard for the day.

Such a tough act to follow.