A Day of Intercontinental Travel With Children (aka Pure Hell)

***Apparently jetlag leads me to be wordy.  I have edited this post down from 3752 words.  And you wondered what was taking me so long, eh?***

So, the flights were hell.  It began right off the bat in Ankara when we arrived at the airport to discover that EcoBabe was not on the ticket.  Or, at least not properly on it.  That particular problem dogged us on each leg of our journey, causing me ping-pong ball anxiety in my belly.

I was up at 1:40am for the flight.  I fell asleep sometime after 12:30am.  Starting a trip of 26 hours on a sleep deficit pretty much guaranteed that it wouldn’t go well.  But some things really, really didn’t go well.

EcoKid had a few meltdowns.  Understandable.  She was working on 5 hours of sleep AND was having to endure endless hours of airport and airplane.  At 3.5 years old though, the girl did incredibly well.  In fact, the two longer of our three flights I got frequent compliments from other travellers on what a well-behaved child she was.  Yeah EcoKid! 

Our flights from Ankara to Istanbul and Istanbul to London were relatively uneventful save the trouble of EcoBabe’s ticket/boarding card mess-up.  Arriving in Heathrow signalled the turn in our experience though.  That’s when things went from expectedly unpleasant to really damned awful.

We got off the plane to discover that rather than bringing our gate-checked stroller back to us, the baggage handlers had sent it through with checked baggage.  This meant enduring a 5 hour layover with EcoBabe strapped to my front (he is HEAVY), three large, heavy carry-on bags draped over my body and being wheeled behind me, three heavy winter coats tucked through straps, and trying desperately to herd EcoKid without a spare hand to grasp her.  This resulted in losing her once (very, very briefly in Hamley’s toy shop) and in complete exhaustion within the first hour of the layover.  It culminated with me locking us into the family toilet where I unloaded my bags, coats, and kids and let the EcoChildren have an unimaginable germ fest.  That’s right folks, I was so tired and so entirely at a loss for how to keep my sanity that I let my children play in a dirty airport bathroom, running back and forth between a toilet bowl and a garbage can.  Rest assured I soaped them up well before we departed…

Somehow, someway, we survived Heathrow with me starring as Exhausted EcoDonkey.  When we got on our flight to Canada, the EcoChildren fell asleep before pre-boarding had even finished.  I (stupidly, stupidly, stupidly) breathed a sigh of relief and thought things could only look up after five excruciating hours in Terminal Three.

Oh how very wrong I was.

The EcoChildren slept for about two hours.  My seatmate and I chatted for a bit and I watched an episode of Corner Gas.  A whole, uninterupted television program.  I dared to think that things were, in fact, going pretty well.  Ha!

The EcoChildren woke up tired.  It was past their bedtimes at home; they’d been up half the night before.  They were cranky.  EcoKid said straight up that she wanted to go home to her dad.  EcoBabe got fussy.  A little noisy.  EcoKid whined and complained.  

Eventually I found myself sitting on the floor in front of them, one child in each of our two seats.  They were happiest this way and though I was markedly uncomfortable squished into the foot space, I was less stressed than when listening to them complain.  

And then I noticed two feet at my side.  I looked up to see a very large man looming above me, staring hard in my face.  I looked at my kids quickly, then glanced back, thinking he’d have moved on.  He hadn’t.  He glared at me with huge glassy eyes, unblinking.  I spoke to him but I can’t recall what I said.  I felt incredibly intimidated.  I was on the floor and had no way to move.  He really had me cornered.  He sneered and moved suddenly to grab EcoBabe.  I yelled, “No!” at him thereby waking my seatmate.  He quickly assessed the situation and dashed off to get the flight attendants.  My heart was racing.  The large, looming man raised his fist and shook it at me but didn’t say a word.  All the while he was glaring hard, not breaking his gaze.  I shifted as much as I could from the floor to position myself in front of the EcoChildren.  He teetered back and forth seeming to me to look angrier and angrier.  

It must have been less than  minute that this situation endured but it felt like an eternity.  Like a film reel running in slow motion.  And then suddenly the flight attendants swooped in.  The reel resumed regular speed.

One woman squeezed between him and me.  Then there was a flight attendant on each side of him.  They told him to return to his seat and he insisted that this was his seat.  He lunged for EcoBabe again and they restrained him.  Then a little face closely resembling his appeared right next to mine; a toddler.  And she clung to his leg.  The flight attendants got this little girl to steer them and to coax her obnoxiously drunk father back to his seat.  I don’t know how he was kept there.  I couldn’t see if he was restrained or if he passed out or if he remained seated through some other means.  When we landed in Edmonton, the RCMP boarded and removed him.  His wife and two small children were waiting in a corner when the EcoChildren and I eventually got off the plane too.  

Nice, eh?  A father travelling transcontinentally with a baby and a toddler gets so drunk that he’s threatening other passengers.  What a winner.

The rest of the flight was a bit of a blur.  I remained vaguely fearful of his possible return to my chairside.  

Things moved slowly once we landed.  Customs took over an hour.  I had a terrible time finding my bags.  I couldn’t push the baggage cart and the EcoChildren in the double stroller at the same time.  I ended up enlisting the help of one of the RCMP who had been involved with the drunk dude.  I had him push my bags.  The next day I discovered that my single stroller had been smashed.  

But it’s all over.  We’re here now.  We’re safe.  We just had a wonderful Easter weekend with visits from aunts, uncles, cousins, and all kinds of extended  family.  I’ve replaced the broken stroller and Air Canada is reimbursing me.  My vacation here is firmly underway.

I’m still reminding myself to breathe deep though…

Related posts:

1. The Annual Jetplane Post I love the song “Leaving On  a Jet Plane” and...
2. Jetlag Sucks. So does Air Canada. I have oodles of great memories from our trip to...
3. And Life Goes On… So.  So.  So… So the computer was out of commission...
4. Children Saving Children: A Knitting Story My friend's daughter, Rebecca, and her class at school recently...
5. Oh, the Great and Many JOYS of Turkey Yesterday EcoDad and EcoKid wanted some time to themselves. Something...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.