I arrived at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport way behind schedule, as you might expect, just in time to see the 13:25 plane to Athens disappearing over the horizon. This was … errr … something of a disappointment, especially as the next plane to Greece was not until 18:30.

Consequently, I had several hours to fill and, believe it or not, in the airport concourse there is little (if anything) available in the way of food that I can eat – in fact, food that anyone can eat. However, this was an eventuality for which I was not unprepared, and the rather large bag of ginger biscuits ($1:00 courtesy of a USA Dollar Store) filled what was rapidly becoming a large hole.

But on my perambulations around the airport, I fell in with a French border policeman and it transpires that he lives just about half an hour from Pooh Corner, in St Bonnet as it happens. We had quite a lengthy chat about the Combrailles and the surrounding area, and we parted the best of friends. It’s a shame that other border police and security guards can’t be as friendly as this guy. Travelling would be a pleasure with people like him to deal with.

Not so the staff at Air France. It seems that while they had managed to fix me up with a place on the flight, nothing had been said to anyone about my baggage. Consequently I was menaced with a €170 excess baggage charge. This likewise led to some discussion, not as heated as anything else on this nightmare journey – not the least reason of which was the fact that I needed some people to be on my side and do things for me – not like in the other situations in Montreal where I was well and truly in the chair. Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … we eventually settled on a fee of €30:00 – still €30:00 too much but that was the best that I could do.

Eventually though, we were called up to the departure lounge – to find that our plane wasn’t there. “Flight number (whatever it was) to Athens is delayed, due to the late arrival of a connection from Washington DC”. They didn’t do that for me, of course, and that is one of the reasons why travelling with bucket-shop carriers is a hazardous occupation.

Another Airbus of course, but Air France, and so a world of difference, even if (surprisingly) there was no in-flight entertainment at all. A vegan meal too, for which I am grateful.

But the fun was only just beginning.

Landing eventually at Athens I started to look for the Holiday Inn where they had arranged for me to stay and which I’m told was at the airport. With no sign of life I approached a helpful airport guy.
“The Holiday Inn? It’s about 10 kms from here”
“Really? So how do I get there?”
“There are shuttle buses that run every 30 minutes from outside the airport” and he showed me where to wait.

45 minutes later, I thought that this was strange, but then again, it is Greece. So the helpful airport guy found me the number and I rang it
“Do I have to ring you to tell you that I’m here so that you can come to pick me up?”
“The shuttle stops running at 22:00 (it was not 00:30)”
“So how do I get to you?”
“You take a taxi”
“But I haven’t got the kind of cash that permits me to take a taxi”
“Well the express bus X93 passes our doorstep if you can persuade the driver to drop you off”.

Luckily there was an X93 at the bus stop and in his bad English and my even worse Greek, we arranged that he would indeed drop me there. But I needed to buy a ticket from the kiosk across the road. Off I duly trotted, paid the €5:00 and turned round just in time to see the X93 disappearing over the horizon.

Anyway, after a while an X95, also signposted to Athens, appeared and it seems that he took more-or-less the same route – at least, passing by the Holiday Inn. And he agreed to drop me there, which he duly did, much to my gratitude.

01:30 now. “Do you know that I had waited nearly an hour for your shuttle bus at the airport?” I said to the guy at reception at the hotel. And like anyone there really cared in the slightest. And the coffee tray in the room was empty and the lights didn’t work properly (but that was a switch issue, although they might have explained to me how to make them work).

There was an overnight petrol station across the road and they fixed me up with some orange juice and biscuits, and then I made the dreadful mistake of having a long and refreshing hot shower to relax me after my efforts. Now of course, it’s 04:00 and I can’t sleep and I’m being called at 06:30.

Somehow it’s just not been my day.