Missing a connecting flight because the first one is late is a pain in the arse.
Especially when you fly at the end of the day and so you have to spend a night in a shitty airport hotel. Hotels you would normally not book for anything in the world. Those in which the mattress is either as thick as a sheet of paper, or so soft that you sink into it and struggle to get out from. Where walls and sheets smell like cold tobacco. Where you don’t have a window, or maybe one if you’re lucky, a small dormer with a view on the tarmac or on a big grey wall.
This day is my turn.
I am on a 72-hours Los Angeles/Paris round trip for a professional appointment, with a stop in Moscow. When the ground crew tell me I’ll have to spend the night in Russia and take a 7:00 am flight the next day, I’m pissed off. I cannot miss my appointment and it’s just not what I had in mind. But hey.. I don’t know Moscow and I have here an opportunity to go and explore its nightlife. Plus, The unexpected sometimes comes with its share of good surprises.
Among the passengers on the plane, we are 4 to be in this situation (a final flight to Paris). Gimena, Renata and Eduardo are just like me, and have to spend the night in Moscow too. Renata and Eduardo are two Brazilian siblings living in L.A. They also happen to be best friends and business partners, running a communications agency with a branch in Paris. They are two very positive energies willing to turn this unexpected stop in Moscow into a memorable night. Gimena is an Argentinian globe-trotter who has been traveling the world for about two years. I don’t get as a positive vibe from her as I do from Renata and Eduardo but she seems to be very motivated to party until the next morning, which is the main criterion that day to be part of the crew.
Problem is, my French passport don’t allow me to get out of the airport and I need a visa to enter the country. To my surprise, instead of going out to party in Moscow and leaving me alone at the airport, which I strongly encourage them to do, they decide without the slightest hesitation not to leave me alone in this mess and finally spend the evening all together in the airport.
So we buy a bottle of Baïkal, seat at the most russian-type food restaurant we can find in the airport, and start to get to know each other over shots of vodka and beer pints. A lot of them.
We are getting fucked up pretty quickly basically. Which is obvious when we pay attention to the way people around stare at us. The more time we spend together, the happier, louder and less reasonable we get. After having gulped down the dinner, the bottle of Baïkal and a few liters of beer, we are invincible. We barely know each other but it feels like we have been best friends for ever. Alcohol obviously… We are getting on wonderfully well with each other and the calvary we were supposed to experience has turned into a frantic night of fun.
Given that the nightlife in an airport is relatively quiet, we decide to buy a bottle of coffee flavored Patrón — these things should not exist — and keep the party going in Renata and Eduardo’s shared room.
Just a few minutes after we have entered the room, Renata and I are kissing each other languorously, pushing Eduardo and Gimena to leave the place, which gives us the intimacy we need to get our clothes off and start having sex.
If the story would stop there, it would have remained a good memory that I would not have bothered to set down on paper. But what happens next is somewhat disturbing.
Indeed, while we are happily fornicating, we have the visit of Eduardo, who abruptly enters the room without even knocking on the door. Twice. I let you imagine the discomfort of this situation. But Eduardo doesn’t seem to be bothered. Instead, he takes care to throw some bed linen on our naked bodies and look in another direction while looking for who knows what, which seems to be much more important than NOT entering a room where her sister is having sex with someone she has just met.
But that’s not all. A few minutes later and while we have resumed our sexual activity, it is Gimena’s turn to honour us with a visit.
So what the fuck is this now?! It’s not a fucking show here! Everyone comes and goes as they please without even considering the moment of intimacy we are experiencing.
Surprisingly enough though, these different interruptions led us to move from bed to bathroom and from bathroom to bed, but it never crossed our mind to put an end to our hanky-panky.
So when a few minutes later someone starts knocking on our door, we obviously don’t even react. No matter who this is, after all that has happened, whoever gently knocks on the door has absolutely no chance to stop us. Certainly the hotel staff that want to report an issue or tell us about their dissatisfaction for the mess we are making. Not the good moment for that though, Eduardo and Gimena can handle the situation.
But instead of stopping, the knocking gets more and more virulent and comes with the agressive tone of an unfamiliar voice speaking in Russian, which eventually makes me decide to open the door, fully naked, as if to make it clear that the moment is badly chosen.
I am now faced with two Russian policemen, standing there like lemons, and clearly much more disturbed than me by the situation. They end up asking us for our passports, which I get and give them in the uttermost relaxation in the world. With all that we have drunk and been through tonight, I have reached a point where nothing can surprise me, and I take things as they come. The police officers can certainly feel this and are probably slightly disconcerted as they immediately leave after they have checked our passports. Problem solved in just a few seconds. But Eduardo is back in the room, so I decide to go and sleep in mine. It’s already late night and I don’t want to miss my flight in a couple of hours.
When I wake up and get out of my room just one hour later, I can clearly see the traces of vomit that Gimena left on the corridor’s carpet. She must have been very drunk last night. She has puked everywhere and she’s missing one shoe. Yes, Gimena boarded the plane and landed in Paris with only one shoe on her feet!
I understand talking with Eduardo that Gimena thought she had lost her passport the night before and had started accusing us of stealing it. This is the reason why both Eduardo and Gimena entered the room whereas Renata and I were having sex. They were looking for Gimena’s passport and Eduardo was probably trying to contain her madness. She’s also much probably the one who called the cops to report the “theft”. Truth is, she had just left it in her room and couldn’t find it because she was drunk. (Fun fact: I totally randomly bumped into Gimena a few months later at a terrace in Buenos Aires).
We almost got kicked off the plane from Aeroflot, when the cabin crew gave us a final warning later after the passengers complained about us and our behavior. The letter is stating that the pilot has the authority to land anywhere to disembark us because of our behaviour, that the local police would be waiting for us on arrival, and that of course this type of procedure would not be without cost to us. Clearly the vodka and lack of sleep were still having effect on us. But this is another story…
