My taxi turns out to be a white Tesla. I have never ridden in a Tesla before, and need help operating the handle, which is flush to the door. There is a subtle touch screen, the size of my television at home, in the front of the car, and I am unsure if the driver is doing anything. His hands are on the wheel, but I think I might be paying for a companion over a chauffeur.
I have always considered airport terminals to be very exotic places, and I felt like a cold-blooded Amazonian snake as we made our way to the terminal. This was mostly due to the roof of the Tesla being comprised of two sheets of tinted glass. The grey tone made the clouds appear ready to storm, but it provided a fantastic view of a landing American Airlines plane. One of my favourite films is The Terminal, starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones, though it is a movie about not flying as much as it is about flying. I think I like it so much because I have always been a fan of motorway service stations, which like the airport departure lounge, are places of transient discovery. A liminal place between departure and arrival, where time clicks with the digital departure screens.
Terminal 5 does not seem to be busy, but I know this is probably deceptive, as it is bigger than most small airports. My friend’s flight has just landed, and I find a seat to wait for her, heartburn from the beans creeping in. A bag topples over across the hall, and something made unmistakably of glass shatters on the linoleum. I can’t see what it is, but I try to imagine what fragile items you might keep in your hand luggage. Hopefully it is a souvenir cup, or reusable mug, over a Swarovski crystal sculpture. No staff react to the sound of smashing glass at all. I go back to tracking the location of my friend’s luggage on my phone, which I did not realise you could do.
Security is alarmingly fast and easy. As we sit and have an early lunch, or late breakfast in my friend’s case, flight 666 is called over the tannoy. I am neither religious, nor particularly superstitious about this number, but I am nonetheless relived that it is not our flight.
Once we are boarded, we are informed of a 45-minute delay. It is all such a novelty, that it doesn’t seem like much time at all to me. My friend is straight into Grey’s Anatomy. Hopefully not the episode with the plane crash. I am in a middle seat, which is actually quite cozy. For me at least, maybe not my flying companions. My friend is next to me in the window seat. From the middle, I can almost pretend I am on the old Megabus Gold I used to take while at university.
Once we have made it off the runway, a sensation I remember hating, and still do not enjoy, flying is a very pleasant experience. I am still not certain psychologically if I can get up and use the bathroom, but we have been furnished with the world’s smallest bottle of complimentary water, and a 10-gram bag of sour cream pretzels ten in total, each the size of a Cheerio, so time will tell if it becomes a physical necessity.
By the end of the flight I have both stood up and urinated on a plane, although not at the same time. I have also eaten a cocktail gherkin, which my friend ordered as part of a mini cheeseboard from the trolley. Eating a pickle at 35,000 feet was not on my bucket list, but I am pleased I can now add it and cross it off at the same time.
We arrive on time to Paphos, despite the delayed departure. The wall of heat as we step put of the plane coats me instantly in a sheen of moisture, so the point that I think they must be spraying down the plane. We take a shuttle bus to the arrivals lounge and collect our bags without incident.
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