A 2 AM Wake up call for our 6 AM flight
Breakfast that early, an egg, coffee, some fruit and cheese, …. at least I’m awake. Our trip to the airport was only 15 minutes in the early morning traffic, so, not bad.
At the airport, Viking rep Ahmed got us thru security and check in and left us with instructions. Find the Egypt air office, tell them you are 27 together for Gate H01, and they will direct you to the bus for another airport!
Well, ALMOST! we found the gate, downstairs, but it wouldn’t open for about half hour. It was a very small area with lots of people, not just us! After a bit longer than expected, past our posted boarding time by a lot, they opened the doors to the gate area and the last security check. (There seems to always be 2 or 3) we were first in line. Nice!
Unfortunately, only the men could go thru! At one is these security checks, everyone is patted down, and only a woman can pat down women. You guessed it! No women agents available! All the men, the whole plane load, went thru while we waited. Patiently at first. But as time went on, tempers were flaring, particularly among the Muslim women and their men on the other side. Most of us were watching the spectacle!
Must have been close to 6 by now, as men pulled out prayer rugs and got down on the floor in the back of the room. One elderly woman demanded a chair, pulled it right across the walk way thru the metal detector, right in front of me, and sat down to pray. I was hoping she was praying for a last security person, as i was by then. But, who knows.
Now one of the heavily veiled young women, with a heavy fur lined long coat, black burka and face covered, gloves even, was over heating, and melted to the floor. Another got down there, i think to help, but as it is Ramadan, they can’t even drink a bit of water.
In the meantime, since then men were all checked thru, they routed some of the women to the other line, but we still waited. The pushy lady behind us was pushing our bags, coats and shoes too at this check point, into the unmoving machine. And we waited. Nothing moving.
Finally after about half an hour, a young woman security agent arrived, cheered by the American women in line. She stopped to argue a bit with the men, but finally she motioned me in, and the lady behind me, Elaine, also on our tour. But…. our bags, shoes, coats, etc, having been pushed into the xray machine were going no where, because there was no one to turn on the conveyor belt and read the xrays!
Now our young security lady had to go back thru and move our things onto the moving belt of the other xray machine. That stopped her checking thru the ladies, of course, but bags were coming thru…. with no one to claim them! (All while about 4 men stood around, doing nothing, or yelling for us to take bags. Our bags were not thru it yet and the ladies that owned these were stuck on the other side of the metal detector shooting for the lady to come back to pat them down! AAKKK!)
Oh the joys of travel! Some more humerus things… the 1 Muslim man traveling with 3 young ladies 3 children handling everyone’s boarding passes himself. Have our men a bit of appreciation for having only 1 wife to attend to!
