Rabbit’s hole

Sleeping in airports

I found an interesting site today, www.sleepinginairports.net, a sort of airport review place. Stories ranging from normal to weird and amusing reminded me of one of my own.
Well, my story could have been on the positive side if not for a few idiot security guards.

Everything started when my girlfriend had to take an early flight (about 7.30 in the morning, if I remember correctly). Because it would have taken 2 hours with the RER (the Paris’ open air metro), she decided to stay at the airport and I didn’t want to let her stay alone.

At 11 PM almost everything was closing up and people were pretty much leaving. We stayed in the open part of a self-service joint to play some Monopoly and around 2 am decided to try to sleep.

The airport had enough travelers, it wasn’t very cold and the bathrooms were open, so we didn’t have other problems that the stupid chairs : these seemed especially made not to let people sit confortably. After half an hour of listening to the cleaning crew go around us we left for a restaurant in the boarding area. This one seemed almost perfect - long sofas, comfortable, clean and without much noise. We weren’t the only ones, an older couple arranged themselves in a corner and wished us goodnight.

Everybody was almost asleep when a patrol arrived - they woke us up and suggested we move outside of the boarding area. Of course, a little sleepy, I protested and tried to explain that we weren’t annoying anyone. We also assured them the moment the bar’s personel were to arrive, we’ll be more than happy to quit (it wasn’t a closed space but let’s assume the bar had rented the area). This is the point it really got weird - the first guy started saying this isn’t something he cared to discuss indicating me I should take our stuff immediately and quit, while one of his collegues began to excite his dog in my direction.

I found myself trying to explain the first guy that it was only for a few hours (at this point it was already 4 am) while the dog went wild at my side and his “master” continuously letting it get a little close. Knowing a few things about trained dogs I realised he was signaling the animal to act out as to scare me - so I asked him directly what would happen to him if the dog were to bite me.

But, to cut the story short, I couldn’t reason with the two idiots while my girlfriend started to worry about the barking dog - at this point I couldn’t even hear myself speak - so we left the area, followed by the other couple.

The moral ? No matter how great the airport would be, the people working there may require some brushing up on the people skills. I still am sorry for not going to the airport’s administration and filing a complaint, as the older couple suggested.

Compare this with Singapore : “… they have a sauna with swimming pool and massage, but they just had closed. Missed the movie theater mentioned here, but found FREE (only at night so) Internet and TV monitors in the Intl Lounge. Just around the corner from the Internet terminal was a darkened and relatively quiet and deserted “SLEEPING AREA” marked as such! …”