Tag Archives: queue at security

Saturday 31st December 2016 – NOW I REMEMBER …

… why it is that I moved to the countryside when I retired from work.

I have a whole new raft of house mates and I was out as early as 19:30 to ask them to turn the volume down. God knows what it’s going to be like by morning.

new years eve leuven city centre belgium december decembre 2016tonight though, I walked up to the city centre to see what was going on. And it’s flaming tqters out there tonight. Not quite as clod as it was last night, but taters none-the-less.

And my walk up into the city was relatively quiet and there didn’t seem to be too many people on the streets as I left here. But the closer that I approached the city centre, the closer I came to the madding crowd.

new years eve leuven city centre belgium december decembre 2016You remember on Christmas Eve that the Grote Markt was pretty empty and I was quite disappointed by that. But tonight was a completely different kettle of fish, which was something of a surprise.

So much so that they had crowd control barriers controlling admission into the square, as well as a whole raft of security guards frisking everyone who tried to enter the Square

new years eve leuven city centre belgium december decembre 2016As for me; well you know that I have issues about all of what is laughably called security and being searched. I found an entry where the people in charge were more … errr … relaxed.

But it wasn’t worth the trouble as far as I was concerned. The Grote Markt was pretty packed, and becoming more tightly packed every minute, and there was one of these discos blasting away right in the centre. Not my cup of tea at all.

new years eve leuven city centre belgium december decembre 2016So I made my excuses and left, and went for a long walk around the city.

It took me about an hour to walk everywhere that I was going. There were plenty of people about, including several who had obviously been a little too close to the barmaid’s apron.

I thought that I had left all of that behind in the UK but apparently not, so it seems.

new years eve leuven city centre belgium december decembre 2016And so I turned around and trudged my weary way homewards, where for the moment it seems to be all quiet. But I’m not holding out too much hope.

At least it gives me a peaceful opportunity to write up today’s blog without too many interruptions. I’m not sure how long it’s going to last – I hope that my new housemates move away tomorrow and go back home. I don’t like company as you know.

new years eve leuven city centre belgium december decembre 2016While you admire the remainder of this evening’s photographs, let me tell you that last night was quite a bad night as far as I was concerned.

It tok me ages to drop off to sleep and then I kept on waking up all the way through. I didn’t really have anything like a decent night’s sleep. Mind you, I must have gone to sleep at some time or other because the alarm awoke me bang on time.

new years eve leuven city centre belgium december decembre 2016I was alone at breakfast, and then came down here to carry on with some more 3D stuff. In accordance with my new resolution from yesterday, I attacked another aspect of the program – object editing.

With this, I can edit clothes, props and accessories in order to make my scenes more realistic. And later, I can have a go at creating my own objects – although that’s something for the long term.

WHat I did wasn’t all that successful, but at least it’s a start. Knowing that you aredoing somethingwrong is the first step to doing it correctly of course.

I went up town later this morning to the Delhaize to do some shopping for the weekend. Including another one of those beautiful loaves that I bought last week.

This afternoon I crashed out for awhile, did a few bits and pieces and then cooked tea, in the midst of the hordes of people who were also trying to cook. It’s a good job that I have my own pans and so on.

Although everything was cooked properly, the roast spuds weren’t roasted as much as I would have liked them to be. The sprouts though were delicious as you can imagine.

After a little rest, I headed off up town for my appointment with destiny. And you know the rest.

We’ll see how things pan out tonight and tomorrow morning. But with all of this noise and celebration, i really do wish that I was back at home

Wednesday 14th October 2015 – SO HERE I AM THEN …

bus orleans express coach riviere du loup montreal quebec canada canada… in the coach station at Montreal, having alighted from my bus.

We reached Riviere du Loup in the small hours and had just a half-hour wait until the bus from the Gaspé arrived. But waiting isn’t so bad. It’s in the back room of a big Irvings petrol station and so it’s warm, there are seats, there are toilets and there are food and coffee available for anyone who feels the need. It’s not unpleasant at all.

The bus was quite full but the seats are quite comfortable so it wasn’t too much of an issue, and I missed most of the journey because I’d dozed off before we’d even left the premises.

I was awake though for when we stopped at Ste-Foy on the outskirts of Quebec, and I woke up again for when we stopped at Longueuil. And wide-awake for when we pulled into the coach station. 20 minutes late, it has to be said, but that’s more to do with the amount of traffic on the road at that time of morning.

The 747 bus for the airport leaves from right down at the far end of the coach station and opposite the booking desks there’s an STM (Société des Transports de Montreal or whatever) where you buy your bus tickets. As the airport is outside the limits of the Montreal urban area, you need to buy a $10:00 day ticket (or an $18:00 3-day ticket) to travel on the bus to the airport.

No point in going to the airport yet though, because I’m hours too early. But round the corner from the bus stand is a café that does a very democratic breakfast and coffee, with free wi-fi and power connections available, and so I dug myself in there for a while.

The bus ride was totally painless. 30 minutes is the advertised time but I had no idea of how long it took because I had a comfortable seat and I was reading a book. It seemed like just a couple of minutes and I was taken by surprise when we arrived.

Upstairs to the baggage check-in and I deposited my baggage. And wimp that I am, my luggage weighed just 20.3 kg, hand luggage included. That’s astonishing because I’m always usually pushing it to the max when I come back.

Downstairs again now. First call was to the Immigration Service to enquire about the procedure for obtaining this mythical form IMM 1442 next time that I come back. Apparently, when I present myself to the immigration desk, I mustn’t let him stamp my passport. I have to be sent to the offices behind the check-in desk and ask there for the form. I’ll probably be interviewed and I have to explain things to them and I should be given the form that I need. The girl that I spoke to didn’t see it as being anything more complicated than that.

Second port of call was to the Subway. There’s one of them in the airport and it’s the cheapest, quickest place to buy lunch. And I’ve learnt now that, in order to avoid any confusion, I order a végétarien sans fromage and that is simply that. No confusion at all.

queue for passing security gates aeroport pierre elliott trudeau airport montreal canadaIt’s a very good job I came back early from my lunch because you can see more of the pantomime that is now taking place at the airport.

You’ll recall the 2.5-hour wait that we had to enter the country, and now we have a 40-minute wait to pass the “security” gates. On interviewing one of the people who was “controlling” the queue, we asked what would happen if the delay here meant that you were late for your flight. She just shrugged her shoulders.

Strangely enough, there was only an American woman and me who thought that this was objectionable. The other 800 or so people in the queue simply accepted it. I can’t believe just how docile and cowed the Westerners have become over these last 10 or 12 years since the Government started grinding their faces in the dirt. 800 people in uproar over this would change things in minutes but Western people these days have lost their sense of fighting spirit.

I spent most of my time in the queue chatting to a pleasant girl from Manitoba, and then we hit the “security” gates.

Pig-ignorant security guards barking out commands without a single “please” and that annoyed me intensely. I had another stand-off with another one of these very sad people and in the end I got her to say “please” when she asked me to take off my boots. I can’t believe that in modern-day Montreal it’s necessary to go to war to obtain a bit of basic and elementary human decency and politeness.

lufthansa airbus A340 300 aeroport pierre elliott trudeau airport montreal canadaThe plane was late, as you might expect, but it was well-worth waiting for. An almost-new, magnificent Airbus A340-300. Packed out to the gunwhales it was too, with just two free seats – one of which was next to me and so I was able to spread myself out.

The food, as you might expect with Lufthansa, was excellent indeed and the cabin staff was very helpful. Not much on the entertainment system, though, but I was able to see a couple of old Bundeslegia matches – Borussia Dortmund v Schalke 04 and then Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund, and then I dozed off while watching the new Asterix the Gaul film.