Life Lesson #43 – Mad Dash

You can call me Usain.

This is me. For real.

When you fly Ryanair on a non-EU passport, you have to get a visa-check stamp when you arrive at the airport, before going through security. Every other airline does it just before you board. This means that if you’re silly enough to forget to get one, you’re pretty much screwed unless you’re Usain Bolt.

Which I totally am.

This kind of rookie mistake should have cost us our trip. But, with lightening speed and a flash of a smile to the security people who aren’t supposed to let you back out, and the check-in people who aren’t meant to stamp a passport for a flight that’s leaving in 2 mins, we made it all the way through Gatwick airport and back to our gate in a flash.

The gate had already closed. But the guard was so shocked to see us again that he tipped his hat to us by reopening and allowing us to board!

I was puffing and panting the whole way to Stockholm. I haven’t felt so exhausted since Fourth Form cross country (after they foiled my plan to see the school counsellor at that exact time in order to get out of it).

I guess, unlike the other Usain, exercise doesn’t agree with me. Endorphins Schmendorphins.

Life Lesson #39 - Taking the Long Way Home

Today I learned never to fly overnight and expect to go to work the next day.

It seemed like a flawless plan, except for the part where I had to set my alarm for 2:45am. Ironically, with the four hour time difference, this was actually 10:45pm London time. Yep. I was up and moving before most of my friends and colleagues went to bed the night before!

The only part I was worried about was getting through immigration. I was warned in advance to keep my head down and walk quickly. The scary people must have been home sick today, because we didn't have a sniff of a problem.

We took off about half an hour late because the plane had been covered in snow and ice overnight, so they had to wash it off with antifreeze.

We were in Munich for two hours, then boarded on time for our flight to London. We sat on the plane for over an hour before takeoff, without any explanation.

Our scheduled landing time came and went, then the time we should have landed based on when we took off came and went... we had no idea why we weren't at Heathrow yet.

Then the pilot came on and said "bad news, folks. We're being diverted to Stansted!" The one time I get to fly out of a decent airport, and I get rerouted to the worst one. Wicked.

When we landed, the pilot came over the intercom and said "I have zero information, and there's nobody here to help us". An hour and a half later, he still had zero information.

When we were finally able to get off the plane, Paul noticed that they didn't appear to be refueling or offloading any luggage.

After an hour of waiting for our bags (the one time we fly with bags!) with the other 150 passengers, we were getting restless.

Finally a guy appears and says "we'll have your bags out soon".

We hear this many, many times over the next four hours while we're stuck between passport control and customs with one snack machine, no water until 3pm, and 150 other grouchy displaced travellers, most of whom had missed connecting flights all over the world.

There was nobody from the airline present, nobody from Stansted gave a toss because we weren't one of their flights, and the phone helplines didn't know a thing about it.

I started to feel like Tom Hanks in The Terminal.

By the time we actually got our bags I was completely wired. I still wanted to go to work just so my day wouldn't be a complete waste of time.

So I did. I arrived at 4:30pm, just 18 hours after I left my hostel in St Petersburg. I could almost have got to work in Auckland in that time!

We're trying to get compensation for lost wages and displacement from Lufthansa... emphasis on trying. Let's just say I won't be travelling with them again anytime soon!

Oh well, I guess it could have been worse...

Life Lesson #33 - Delayed Off

Navigating the backstreets of a Spanish island in a manual hatchback with no map should be a recipe for disaster.

I was perplexed to rock up at the terminal hours early without so much as a missed turnoff. There was that gnawing feeling that something was about to go wrong.

EZ8634 - DELAYED.
They put it in red so you can't miss it. I'm already through security, and luckily I had the foresight to swap my sandy jandals and damp togs for fresh clothes in the handicapped loo.

NEW BOARDING TIME - 01:20.
The original flight time was already a stretch. "Will we be ok at work if we get in at 2am?", I remember asking Paul. Then, a month ago easyJet bumped the flight back another hour. "How about 3am?" I said in a slightly high pitched voice when I got the email.

And now this - a delay of almost three further hours. Paul asks when we'll get home. I do the maths, factor in the hourly train from Gatwick and the night bus to our place... "about 5:30am" I realise aloud.

EasyJet give us vouchers for the inconvenience. I get a Whopper Jr meal from BK. The guy thrusts the tray at me and I watch in slow motion as my Large Coke No Ice hurtles off the tray, landing Glee-style square in the centre of my formerly-fresh shirt.

He shrugs and hands me a single napkin.

Everything takes longer than they tell us it's going to. About eight hours, six queues, two airport buses, one shuttle, one train, a London bus, a brisk walk and a patdown later, we arrive home. It's almost six o'clock. The sky is lightening. I can hear birds I've never heard before.

A few short hours later, I arrive in the office before anyone else. Turns out my boss is stuck in New York, after his week long trip was trampled all over by an earthquake and a hurricane. He's in JFK with thousands of other stranded travelers and has no idea when he'll be home.

I decide that my night really wasn't so bad, and head to the coffee machine.

My chest is still sticky.

Life Lesson #32- The Trip to Nowhere

I've been looking forward to this weekend for ages. Like any self respecting theatre freak, I find myself drawn to the the Edinburgh Fringe Festival like a mozzie to one of those lights that zaps them.

If only I had made it.

I planned the weekend to a degree of precision I believe they call obsessive compulsive. There were spreadsheets.

I settled on Last 5 Years, Margaret Cho and Spring Awakening. Two shows and a comedian that I have adored for years and never had the chance to see.

 

Last night I couldn't sleep for excitement at seeing my very first Jason Robert Brown.

If only I had remembered my passport.

By the time it crossed my mind, our easyBus was 10 minutes away from Stansted, and all I could do was hope that my drivers licence would suffice - given that it's a domestic flight.

Not so. While most other airlines follow the government guidelines accepting photo ID for domestic flights, Ryanair's stingy policies don't stretch.

So, after trying as hard as possible, I find myself glumly heading back on the Stansted Express while txting Paul instructions for how to pick up tickets when he arrives in Scotland without me.

He ends up convincing me to shell out a bomb for another flight, and I locate one leaving Heathrow in two hours.

The express is not so express. Luckily, it arrives to Liverpool St Station, which has three direct underground lines to our nearest station.

Guess which three underground lines are closed for maintenance today?

Two tubes, a bus, and 40 minutes layer I sprint in our front door, grab my passport (and a few of the lollies we nicked from the waiting room of our hotel six weeks ago in Germany), then run back to catch the tube to the Heathrow Express - which leaves from Paddington.

I arrive in the nick of time to sprint through the closing doors.

When I arrive at Heathrow, I race straight to the British Airways 'help' desk. (Yes, I put fear quotes around the word 'help' on purpose).

A bored looking man with a comb-over and glasses like my dad had in 1991 sluggishly informs me that check-in has closed.

"But I have no luggage!" I exclaim.

"The flight doesn't leave for nearly 40 minutes!"

"I busted a gut to get here!"

"I only booked it an hour ago!"

"I paid top dollar for it!"

"I've already missed one flight today!"

He glares.

"It's for a funeral!!"

Heartless man just stares into me with his beady little eyes. I can't stop staring at his sweaty forehead.

He brushes me off and tells me to go to customer service.

I'm greeted by an 18 year old with a loose mousy ponytail who looks like she's trying not to smile.

By now I've given up on all hope of making my flight, so I use another tactic: lies.

"I've missed my flight and they told me to come hear for my refund".

Her eyes widen. She starts laughing. She calls her manager over. He's about 4"8. I repeat my desperate plea.

His eyebrows raise. He starts laughing too. They glance at each other and laugh together.

After five minutes of groveling, they send me on my way with a "good luck at getting a refund online" and knowing looks exchanged.

I get back on the train again and head back into town to see The Inbetweeners movie with our new friends.

I'm not sure if I should feel happy or sad that Paul ended up stuck on the bus so long that he missed the first show too. And Zoe was in the right place but unable to do anything without the tickets.

Oh, and I went to completely the wrong station for the movie and arrived 15 minutes after it started - on the other side of town. By the time I got back to our home station it was two and a half hours since I'd got on the train at Heathrow, and my ticket had expired so I had to pay a £10 penalty fee.

Murphy's Law, I guess.

Life Lesson #11 - Air Criminals

Standing in the queue to go through security at LAX, I realised I still had my deodorant in my bag. Like the sly fox that I am, I decided just to walk through anyway and let them confiscate it.

They didn't. My bag made it through with no problems. Well, correction, the bag with the deodorant made it through with no problems. They were very interested in the other one. Not one, but three problems with it. Two cans of orange soda pop and my Gucci Envy fragrance. Not my Gucci Envy fragrance! I considered grabbing the Gucci and making a run for it, but it turned out to be under the weight limit anyway. Not so for my soda pop (which I'd forgotten were in there). The guy looked at me like an idiot and threw those out. They were yuck anyway.

And Paul? He got searched too. The reason? Too many books.

When we got to the plane I smugly sprayed on some of my Nivea Dry Impact For Men, feeling somewhat concerned about airport security, but somewhat awesome about my successful thwart. I can't decide what to sneak on board next. I'm thinking either cocaine or a bomb.

Bittersweet

I broke my own rule today. I often talk about how I never cry, but today I couldn't help myself.

I'm sitting in the departure lounge in Auckland right now hoping this wasn't a mistake... it's meant to be the time of my life, but today it's feeling more bitter than sweet.

Here's hoping I can look back on this feeling later and laugh!

AA

My boarding pass

The big send off