Arrivals: a good place to start. I arrive in Barcelona (and then leave) quite a bit at the moment—by plane, mostly—and the Catalan passengers who always start clapping when the plane lands never cease to amaze/amuse me. What else were they expecting to happen? (And yes, I know they’re Catalans because of the cheering language that accompanies the applause). Has anyone else experienced this? On touchdown the clapping always emanates from the back row, then sort of ‘Mexican-waves’ its way towards the front—fizzling out a little around the fat-cat-speedy-boarder-emergency-exits, before picking up again as it ripples towards the cockpit, where I always imagine the pilot to also be applauding and backslapping his co-pilot. Why? Why clap? Of course we were going to land! That’s what we all paid for, for chrissakes…
Then there’s the Arrivals Hall—'Llegados'. You know what I’ve always wanted to do (and one day will)? Well, look at those chauffeurs awaiting passengers and holding up signs like, ‘Mr. Smith, Hotel Arts’ or, ‘Mr. Jones, Nestlé Barcelona’. I've always wanted to stroll up and say, ‘Hi! Here I am!’ Hopefully the chauffeur would cheerfully take my bag and usher me towards a luxury limousine. Why wouldn’t he? Why would he question it? Think about it. It would be rude to be grilled with, ‘Show me! Prove you’re Mr. Jones! I thought he had a beard last month!’ ‘No!’ I would yell back. ‘No, you didn’t collect him, me, last month! If you had, you wouldn’t be standing there holding up a sign, would you?’ So, has anyone tried this yet? Let me know. I reckon we could travel the world hitching a lift to city centres from airport chauffeurs …
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