Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world

Here’s what sucks about traveling. Airports. I hate them but love them at the same time. I love the arrivals gate for the same reasons Hugh Grant’s character pines over them in ‘Love Actually.’

I find that airports can really set the pace for the trip. I thank the Milan/Bergamo airport staff for stepping up and just being so Italian about everything.

Yes, I’m going to stereotype but I find in this case it to be true. You see, I get to the airport and find the security gate that will start my whole Berlin adventure. I hate security, I don’t know why. I’m not smuggling things across the borders or even carrying anything contraband… I stay below the 100ml liquid limit and forgo all tweezers and nail clippers. But I hate when I beep, which is usually the case since I usually wear jeans. This time I beeped, not only because of the jeans but also my boots which had a buckle on it, so they made me take off my boots and go back through as they scanned my shoes. I beeped again, but this time I pointed to my earrings, which were also quite big and metal-y so they let me though without so much as a wanding. Crazy Italian security.

Ryan air, my lovely airline, also has a strict policy with it’s carry-on luggage. Apparently you can carry only one item on, this means if you carry on your luggage, you cannot carry on your purse or computer bag or whatever, it must all be contained in one bag. Said bag must also weigh only 10kg. So I got my bag weighing 10kg, or so I thought, but that was before I got my purse in, I had decided beforehand to just go through security that way and when I got to get on the plane I’d stick my purse in. But upon getting to security they made me put the bag in one of those metal things that your bag must fit into in order to be classified as a carry-on, this thing also weighed it for me. The bag, was in all honestly too big (I had taken my aunts), but they bought my excuse that it didn’t fit because the handle was sticking out. It was a kilo overweight, but they just told me to stick some things in my purse and it would be fine. Apparently the two bag thing wasn’t a problem. When I reached the gate I worried about this again, but upon noticing all other women carrying their bags plus a purse I didn’t worry.

I had arrived early, giving myself time before the flight to peruse English magazines and wander around the small airport. The flight was to leave at 7pm, the gate, my boarding pass informed me, was to close at 6:30pm. I headed to the gate to line up around 6:20. It was still not open. Ney, they did not open it until 6:40… oh you Italians, I love your blatent disregard for guidelines.

Seeing that I did not get on the plane until about 6:50 and they didn’t close the plane doors until 7:05 I began to worry I would be late to Berlin. It was rather odd, since I was flying Ryan Air, and for those who do not know how the airline can charge low airfare, it’s because the moment you get on the plane, they are advertising for everything. They also sell everything on the flight, the usual drinks and food (buy two spirits get one free!), but also duty free items and scratch tickets. They also like to advertise that they’re the best European airline when it comes to arriving on-time and low cancellations. At this point I began to wonder if we’d be making it on time.

But miraculously, even though we took off 15 minutes late, we were in Berlin right on time. Go Ryan Air!

Happily able to retrieve my luggage from the overhead compartment I was able to work my way through the maze that is the Berlin airport (the arrivals maze is more complex than at Vancouver international) and waltz through the sliding doors to see Kim without any customs interference (we’ve worked it out that if you are flying within the EU you have no customs to deal with, this is still very odd).

All in all, the experience at Bergamo and with Ryan air in Italy was good. But Berlin, oh Berlin, I hate to stereotype, but if the Italians were so very “Italian” in their airport, I worry that the German’s were slightly the bad stereotype westerners have of them in their airport (ahem, I hate to say this but, such as Seinfeld liked to call the soup guy a soup nazi, dare I say I found many, many, many airport nazi’s?)

Having experienced the easy time in Italy, Kim and I took a little more time to get to the airport in the morning, allowing us to sleep a little longer and grab one last latte at the airport before I headed through the security gates. Upon leaving Kim, who insisted on taking my picture as I worked my way through the airport, I headed for security where they asked me again to stick my carry-on into the metal measuring thing. Here’s where it all got a little crazy. The man informed me that it was too big, I argued that it was because of the oddly placed handle, he wasn’t having that. So I told him in Milan they didn’t care. Again, he told me they had to keep within the regulations and it’s not his fault if an airport was falling behind in that department. I tried to charm him. Didn’t work. I begged, I told him my gate closed in half an hour, but nope, I had to haul ass to the Ryan air desk and check that bad boy in (he also took issue with my purse and bag situation, even if I argued I would place my purse in my bag, he wasn’t having it, again, even if Milan allowed it). So I get to the desk and plead my case to the lady, she wasn’t having that either, in fact I’d say that she was not too pleased with life in any way and made me and many other passengers aware of the fact (it appeared that the other Italians on board, which was about 99% of us, all took advantage of the Milan airport lack security, because most of us had to check luggage after being turned away by Mr. Security Man).

Anyways, I bring my luggage to the desk and check it in, she then tells me to pay for it, across the airport and then come back for my boarding pass. Her directions to the desk where I pay were sketchy at best, and I can’t chalk this up to language difference, she was an English speaking individual. But I finally find where I pay and lay down 20 euro (20 EURO!) to check in my luggage and head back to the desk where I started to get my boarding pass. At this point I have about 25 minutes before the gate closes and there’s a line at security. The desk has a line as well as she is trying to explain to more Italians that they have to check in their luggage. I try to go to the front to grab it, they’re not liking that. So I go to the next desk, where a lady is checking in a flight for Dublin and tell her I just need my pass, if she’d just reach over and grab it from the other lady. Apparently Dublin lady hates life and her job as well and gets pissed off that I would even suggest such a thing and points back to the end of the line and tells me to wait. Luckily I get my pass quickly after the line clears and am off to security.

Evidently security in Berlin is tight, crazy tight. I stood in a line of about 10 people and it took about 20 minutes to get to the gate. It took 10 minutes to clear those people, seriously, they made everyone go through the security and if they beeped or not, they would be wanded and patted down. I finally got through and beeped, of course. They of course did not like me telling them I had boots that tend to set these things off. Instead the woman, who also hated life, security guard decided to give me a slow security check. She wanded me, patted me down, felt for belts, when there wasn’t one she felt the button of my jeans wondering why a jean button would beep (has she not seen jeans before?). Upon reaching my shoes she made me take them off, they looked at them in the security thing and she patted my feet and legs down. When she finally had decided I wasn’t a threat, she left me there with 5 minutes to gather all my things (a lot since I was wearing many layers and had to take off all my jewelry at this point) and run to my gate.

But it wasn’t so easy. As I went to grab my bag another security guy (btw, most places have two or three working per lane right? This place had 6) asked to see inside my bag because I had liquids, and yes, I did have my makeup bag in there since I hadn’t had a chance to throw it in my luggage, but nothing was over 100ml so why did it matter. Apparently I should have bought a plastic bag for them, again I said they hadn’t cared in Milan (or in Vancouver or Amsterdam for that matter), but he told me they had to be in a bag, this was the regulation for over 2 years (said to me in a mocking, “are you stupid” voice). He wanted me to leave security, buy a bag for .50 cents and come back and deal with security again. I basically refused, telling him my gate closed in 5 minutes and I had no time. He took pity on me, let me go but told me next time to follow regulations.

I did end up getting to the gate on time, but at this point it hadn’t even opened, when it finally did open, I had found that the plane hadn’t even arrived yet, so my running and worrying wasn’t so much a thing. Eventually we were let on and we took off, again 15 minutes late, but again they landed on time. As in true Italian form, the Italians on board clapped.

Evidently all those working at this Berlin airport hate their jobs and their lives, not one person I met there even tried to be nice or explain anything to me, I get the whole experience with working with the public, it can make you pissy sometimes, but not once, even before I started to get annoyed, were they even trying to be nice to me. This was kind of a bad ending to what was a great trip, because elsewhere in Germany I found everyone was relatively nice and really helpful.