24 Hours in Vancouver Airport

10:31 a.m.: The adventure begins. I enter Vancouver airport after my flight arrives from northern Canada. I have almost exactly 24 hours to kill before my connecting flight leaves for New York. Can I survive for that long in this mini city set within the confines of an international airport? Oh hell, who am I kidding? All I need is Internet access.

11:25 a.m.: After I’ve made the usual just-got-off-a-plane pit stops, including eating something and drinking more coffee, I scope out a good place to sleep later that night. Because I only slept about an hour the night, sleep will be critical. As I wander around, I also look for an electrical outlet. I have several work projects to finish before my vacation can officially start so I need to plug in my laptop which already is at less than full battery strength.

11:40 a.m.: I can’t find an outlet for my laptop, but I discover how to access the convenient wireless Internet the Vancouver airport gleefully describes on their website. What they don’t mention is that to take advantage of the Wi-Fi, I must purchase time from their Internet provider. Silly me. I’m from New York City. I should know that nothing is free, and everyone expects a cut.

1:50 p.m.: The laptop battery is skimming the trees and about to die. Now I really need an outlet. In the international departures area, hordes of people rush toward me on their way to the check-in counters. Several push their way through the throngs using their overloaded baggage carts. A sadistic gleam in their eye warns me to get the hell out of the way.

2:05 p.m.: Where the hell can you plug in at this airport? Sure, they have no problem charging you for 24-hour Internet access, but they’ve blocked all the outlets to make them unusable. I’m determined to beat the system that’s trying to rip me off.

2:17 p.m.: Still looking for an outlet. I drag my bags past a full-service dental clinic located in the lower level. Who’d want to get a root canal at an airport? I work my way down to the creepy basement. No working outlets. Exhausted, I skip the stairs and take the elevator up to the main level.

2:40 p.m.: Eureka! An outlet! Okay, so I have to sit on a granite floor beneath a payphone next to the double doors that slide open every time someone’s giggling 3-year-old gets near them. At least the outlet works. Only occasionally do I have to lean to the side when someone needs to use the payphone.

5:37 p.m.: I take a break to get some circulation back into my butt and a beer down my throat. And food. I’m starving. Just don’t forget the beer.

5:41 p.m.: I plant myself in the bar on the lower level only to be told by the bartender that yes, I can order the burger on the menu, but I can’t have it with cheese because he has to walk 50 feet to Swiss Chalet for the burgers. So? It can’t have cheese on it? Where’s the logic? And more importantly, how can anyone even consider eating a burger without cheese? That’s not civilized. I repack all my gear and go to the Swiss Chalet myself. The cheeseburger and I return to the bar where I scarf it down with a Honey Brown on tap. Damned good cheeseburger. Oh, and damned good beer. Can I say damned again?

6:34 p.m.: Another Honey Brown and a bowl of pretzels. A few regulars show up. Regulars at an airport bar? I suppose as long as they’re not pilots, we’re okay. The bar has a normal electrical outlet and surprisingly, it works. Best of all, it’s right behind my chair. If only I’d honored my family’s tradition of going straight to the bar, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time looking for an outlet. Listen to your parents. They know what they’re doing.

8:30 p.m.: I’ve nursed a glass of water for way too long just to look like I’m still a paying customer. I leave the bar. I return to the hard floor beneath the payphone where I catch up on my personal emails. I’d made the mistake of mentioning to my mother that I had 24 hours to burn before my next connection. I read her reply, “I hope you’re at least getting a hotel room.” I snap the laptop shut.

10:35 p.m.: As I schlep my bags from one end of the Vancouver airport to another for what feels like the hundredth time (maybe it is) I notice several people already asleep. Some have claimed carpeted sections of floor while others are sprawled across hard plastic chairs. A few have entombed themselves in flannel sleeping bags. I read on the Internet somewhere that a guy who was between jobs and without an apartment lived in Vancouver airport for weeks. No one bothered him, probably assuming he was between flights. As I walk past these sleeping people, I wonder how many might actually be homeless. Note to self: If things get tough, I can move into the international departures terminal.

11:01 p.m.: In the women’s washroom near the food court, I change into suitable sleeping clothes and prepare for bed. Nothing screams I’m living at the airport more than wearing sweatpants and brushing your teeth with an electric toothbrush. As I’m finishing up, the loudspeaker announces that the airport will now be conducting fire alarm drills. Sleep? Who needs sleep?

11:24 p.m.: I settle into my lair—a row of five thinly cushioned seats. Just before I lay my head down the loudspeaker erupts. “May I have your attention please!” The sound roars and bounces off the steel cathedral ceiling. “The fire alarm drill has been concluded. Thank you for your patience.” Damn that loudspeaker. Can’t they discuss quietly amongst themselves? I also try to block out the blinding florescent lights. Somewhere in the near distance, a machine generates a steady and persistent squeak. High above me guests wheel their luggage across a suspended walkway that leads to the luxury hotel inside the airport. They peer down at us poor common folk who are roughing it without room service and soft beds.

11:45 p.m.: Picture a Zamboni ice resurfacer, but this one is designed to clean floors and it sounds like an approaching freight train with squeaky brakes. I have a horizontal view of the machine as it races blindly toward me. I’m about to die and I know it but I’m too tired to move. The driver seems to take a perverse pleasure in whipping the machine away from me at the last second. By the seventh drive-by I begin to wonder if I’ll ever know sleep again in my lifetime.

 

 

3:58 a.m.: Still awake. I’m beginning to suspect there’s a sadistic conspiracy amongst the cleaning crew—a woman walks up to a sleeping couple and sloshes the mop and bucket right beside them but nowhere else. Then she darts across the room to another guy sleeping on chairs and does the same thing. She catches me watching her and avoids my area.

5:40 a.m.: By now, I’ve given up on sleep. Using the women’s restroom mirror, I try to make myself look a little less like a street person on crack.

6:00 a.m.: The ordeal is nearly over but three hours remain before my plane begins boarding. Desperate to kill time, I’m in line at the check-in counter even before it opens. In fact, I’m so early that when the staff arrives, they assume I’m with the others who are headed to Hawaii. After almost 48 hours without sleep, I’m too exhausted to protest. I’m swept up in the hoopla and pre-flight celebrations of both the staff and passengers. After the woman behind the counter takes my passport and my real flight destination pops up on her screen, she peers at me and says, “So, do you just like to wear a lei?”

6:40 a.m.: I pass through American Customs in the Vancouver airport then stop at Starbucks but can’t think clear enough to realize which country I’m in to know if I need to use US or Canadian currency. I solve the problem by paying with my credit card.

6:45 a.m.: I’m at the gate more than two hours early. I have half the terminal to myself. Now what? I resort to what’s become familiar and stretch out on the chairs. I close my eyes without sleeping.

8:30 a.m.: Boarding call. Hooray!

9:02 a.m.: I’m secure in my seat as the plane pushes away from the gate. I did it. I survived almost 24 consecutive hours spent in the Vancouver airport.

If only I could sleep on airplanes.