The Transfer

Transfer:  To move or pass from one place, person or thing to another.

After experiencing the joys of travel for 2 months, today we experience the agony.  We have an early flight so naturally, keyed up about all the things that can go wrong with an early flight – alarm not going off, cab not showing up, fiery meteor storm from hell striking our building – we don’t sleep very well, awakening long before the alarm does indeed go off.  There’s a lot to be said for the comfort of the Home Alarm System – it’s tried, it’s true, it has stood the test of time.  As we finish our packing, I look outside and see our cab tucked into the alley across from the apartment, a good 20 minutes early. 

I step out onto the balcony – the driver looks up: “Cinco minutos,” I say, holding up 5 fingers.

“Tranquilo,” he replies.

That is such a great word.  Literally: tranquil.  Idiomatically: it’s cool; chill, dude; don’t sweat it, I’m good.

We have a nice ride to the airport, swapping a little Spanish and a little English.  I will say again: people appreciate the effort.  I give the guy a big tip even though in Europe taxi drivers don’t expect much extra.

He collects himself and then says in Spanish: “Until your next trip to Barcelona” or something like that.  Maybe it was: “C’mon back, y’all.”

We are at the airport the requisite 2 hours early for an international flight so we can maneuver through security and customs; the first leg of our trip is just under 4 hours; a 2 hour lay-over; then the big leg, 11 hours in coach.  Ah, can’t beat it.  In reality it was all OK – it’s unbelievable to be able to travel 6,000 miles with so little effort.

Things begin to go downhill at this point and it’s not like we’ve had an painless day already – we just want to get home, take a shower, and climb into bed.  The main airport serving Vacation City is one big airport and we’ve wisely timed our arrival for 5PM on a Friday night before a 3 day weekend.  We contact our shuttle service.  The time is 5PM and we have an hour ride home.  We have been awake for about 20 hours and we’re dealing with the discombobulation of a 9 hour time change when the shuttle shows up with 6 other passengers already on board.

Two hours later we drop off the last of our fellow passengers and I ask the driver how much longer we have.

“About an hour,” he says.

SuperK and I understand that there’s some give and take in travel.  We understand that the shuttle service makes more money if it has a full van.  We understand that farthest away means last off.  Traffic is very heavy which we understand given the day and time.  We also understand that if we would have had some WWII circa grenades with us that some shit would have been blown up. 

I tell the driver that I’m upset.  I use neutral words and I keep my voice at a reasonable level.  I tell him that I’m not upset with him but with his company.  I ask SuperK if I can call the company and she agrees readily.  I can’t stress how unusual this is – when I’m pissed off she almost never lets me open my mouth let alone call someone on the phone, and you can forget about the computer, too.

I don’t think they much cared, to be honest about it.  It was a big deal yesterday but today who cares, really?