We were all so happy when it snowed in November, but once it started snowing in December....we were all worried about our precisely planned journeys home.
My plan appeared simple enough. A flight from Heathrow to Paris (CDG) on the 19th, then a connecting flight to HK a couple of hours later. This just fell apart when the snow came....the dreaded news that my first flight got 'cancelled'. Panic-stricken, with no way of catching a flight on the same day to CDG, I had to turn to the EuroStar.
The new plan was then to take the EuroStar on the night of the 18th, stay a night in Paris and catch my flight (as planned). HOWEVER, everyone else had the same idea which made it impossible to get a ticket. It didnt help that the ticket counter is closed either since it prevented me purchasing a ticket for the next day.
After a few frantic calls back to HK, i managed to book a Eurostar ticket for the 19th at 7pm and postpone my HK flight to the 20th. - which made me 24hrs 'delayed' - with 'high hopes' i got to St Pancras at 3pm and saw a HUGE queue lining up for the Eurostar. But after being told to queue up an hour before my departure time, i settled down to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate.
UNTIL I realised that the queue was getting a BIT too long and that lots of trains were being cancelled and delayed. Guess what! They were actually ignoring your ticket times and just saying that 'if you have a ticket for today, line up and first-come-first-served". Which left me stressed out for the next 3/4hours in the queue. Even when I finally managed to get on a train (2 more trains after that to Paris) there were TONS of people lining up. The queue stretched from one end of the station to another, then did a couple of loops before going halfway back down the station...
I managed to arrive at Paris at 12 30 AM on the 20th (the train got delated by 2.5hrs due to 'restrictions on speed' imposed in france).
Everything went quite smoothly after that apart from a 2hr delay after check-in, a 1hr wait on the plane due to the need to load luggage and de-snow the plane, as well as the captain co-ordinating with cathay headquarters to provide some sort of information that the french traffic control required.
This cold and stressful journey ended when I landed in HKIA at 11am - 21st
The wait on the flight was made slightly more amusing by interesting and amusing comments by the pilot.
"Welcome on board this Cathay Pacific flight to HK, we are very sorry for the delay. However you should really sympathise with with passengers on the Air France plane on our right. They have been parked there for an hour and they cant get off due to the need to move five meters foreward to the skybridge. Without any engineers with those bright 'ping pong paddles' to guide them they'll be stuck for quite a while"
(regarding the same 'ping pong paddle') " We cannot leave until Air France moves in because we need the trolley that they are using to push us out, so our cathay engineers have gone over there to help them out! Now there is some international co-operation!"
"you'll be glad to know that we'll be able to take off soon to hk, and even more good news, the temperature is higher, the stock market and the economy is also higher in HK too"
"we are now at the snow clearing station, and those two vans you see will soon be attacking us with an airline equilvalent to gin and vodka to melt the snow on the plane" (10 minutes later) "it might be getting a bit stuffy on the plane right now because we had to turn off the ac, although it might do some of you good to breath in alcoholic fumes, its not such a good idea for us in the cockpit"
"eventhough the french airport made you suffer earlier, i hope that we have been able to make your flight very pleasent and has managed to convince you to travel with cathay next time"
XD it's the first time i've heard such interesting announcements on the plane :p
So glad I'm in sunny Malaysia and none of the chilly-ness of 852 is even comparable to the freezing snowstorm in Europe :)
Buuuut, seeing as most my uni choices are in UK, I guess.. and am praying that that won't happen to me next year!
lctx.
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