(missed) trains, planes and automobiles: not to mention a fair dose of alcohol and some poitiers late night life
well sometimes london really does suck, especially when it takes 2.5 houirs to get to an airport - where 1 of those hours is spent getting accross london on a saturday morning when every other hung-over londoner is asleep and the streets are empty. in the end i really should have taken my own advice and taken a bus to liverpool st to pick up my train out to stansted airport. to fill those uninitiated in the cheap-airline deal, ryanair airports are usually in small random towns and, lucky for me, liam (and poitiers) happens to be one of those towns.
it did all feel a litle too easy as i left claire and ben's house in fulham at 8am after succesfully waking up to my alarm and walked along the empty streets to the tube station. my flight didn't leave until 11am and on the way into london it only took me an hour and 45min from the airport: and that was peakhour.
oh how wrong i was...
the tube stopped and started and stuttered its way accross the underground and got me to liverpool station after a change at 9.01 am, which meant i messed the 9am stansted "express" (which apparently leaves every 20min and takes 45). well the apparent became the visceral as my blood pressure rose - the next train was scheduled for 9.30 and didn't leave until 10.40 due to nothing other than sheer slackness. my 10.30 arrival and run to the check-in gave me a cool 35minutes to get sorted before takeoff
the ryanair staff were, however, blatantly idot conforming poms (sorry my friends) who can't think for themselves and don't know the difference between "rules" and "regulations". 35 minutes is, quite literally, enough time to do most things in life... except maybe bearing a child but hey lets not get technical. testament to the fact that 35 minutes is clearly enough time to get my bags the whole 100m to the aircraft is that, on my subsequent flight (a cool 5 hours of sitting around in stansted airport and 40quid later) is that they were still loading bags onto that plane 5min before our estimated departure time. so it goes without saying that they didn't let me check in to my flight and forced me to take a plane to an even more remote (shock horror!) town by the name of rocheforte. which isn't so remote if you live there so for rochefortians its cool, but it's definitely no where near poitiers.
in the end i wasn't too unhappy about missing the flight because my temper can deal with those situations quite smoothly. in retrospect, infact, i should have kicked up more of a stink at the check-in. too nice really. met some nice people in the airport, including one girl who missed her flight to poitiers aswell and she was nice enough to convince her boyfriend to drive a random stranger to their home town of angouleme which is on the train line to poitiers. in the end i really needed that lift because the customs officials in rocheforte (population 3 depressed or just bored customs officials) decided to pracitcally strip search me. someone please remind me to have a shave and wear a cap when i fly into the US because the rubber glove will most definitely be out ther if this is any indication. i've never seen more incredulous looks on the face of a person when they ask a question about where you have been and where you were going. i guess the fact that i have been travelling for so long and hold dual citizenship is a little unusual, but the benefit of the doubt is obviously not a french institution. although it's not really part of any western institution very much these days with all of our pre-emptive activities so i shouldn't be suprised.
in the end i got to poitiers safe and sound, albeit a cool 8 hours later than originally planned but i got to the pub in time for the kiwi's to absolutely anhiliate the frogs in the second half of the rugby, which was funny if not somewhat satisfying while sitting in a french bar over a well earnt beer. the night powered on and through all of the poitiers late night hot-spots; even managed to do some pole dancing to that masterpiece of modern music: "cotton-eyed joe".
trashy uni towns - if you can't beat'm, join'm
hungover now and most probably going to have a quiet beer or two for liams birthday dinner
it did all feel a litle too easy as i left claire and ben's house in fulham at 8am after succesfully waking up to my alarm and walked along the empty streets to the tube station. my flight didn't leave until 11am and on the way into london it only took me an hour and 45min from the airport: and that was peakhour.
oh how wrong i was...
the tube stopped and started and stuttered its way accross the underground and got me to liverpool station after a change at 9.01 am, which meant i messed the 9am stansted "express" (which apparently leaves every 20min and takes 45). well the apparent became the visceral as my blood pressure rose - the next train was scheduled for 9.30 and didn't leave until 10.40 due to nothing other than sheer slackness. my 10.30 arrival and run to the check-in gave me a cool 35minutes to get sorted before takeoff
the ryanair staff were, however, blatantly idot conforming poms (sorry my friends) who can't think for themselves and don't know the difference between "rules" and "regulations". 35 minutes is, quite literally, enough time to do most things in life... except maybe bearing a child but hey lets not get technical. testament to the fact that 35 minutes is clearly enough time to get my bags the whole 100m to the aircraft is that, on my subsequent flight (a cool 5 hours of sitting around in stansted airport and 40quid later) is that they were still loading bags onto that plane 5min before our estimated departure time. so it goes without saying that they didn't let me check in to my flight and forced me to take a plane to an even more remote (shock horror!) town by the name of rocheforte. which isn't so remote if you live there so for rochefortians its cool, but it's definitely no where near poitiers.
in the end i wasn't too unhappy about missing the flight because my temper can deal with those situations quite smoothly. in retrospect, infact, i should have kicked up more of a stink at the check-in. too nice really. met some nice people in the airport, including one girl who missed her flight to poitiers aswell and she was nice enough to convince her boyfriend to drive a random stranger to their home town of angouleme which is on the train line to poitiers. in the end i really needed that lift because the customs officials in rocheforte (population 3 depressed or just bored customs officials) decided to pracitcally strip search me. someone please remind me to have a shave and wear a cap when i fly into the US because the rubber glove will most definitely be out ther if this is any indication. i've never seen more incredulous looks on the face of a person when they ask a question about where you have been and where you were going. i guess the fact that i have been travelling for so long and hold dual citizenship is a little unusual, but the benefit of the doubt is obviously not a french institution. although it's not really part of any western institution very much these days with all of our pre-emptive activities so i shouldn't be suprised.
in the end i got to poitiers safe and sound, albeit a cool 8 hours later than originally planned but i got to the pub in time for the kiwi's to absolutely anhiliate the frogs in the second half of the rugby, which was funny if not somewhat satisfying while sitting in a french bar over a well earnt beer. the night powered on and through all of the poitiers late night hot-spots; even managed to do some pole dancing to that masterpiece of modern music: "cotton-eyed joe".
trashy uni towns - if you can't beat'm, join'm
hungover now and most probably going to have a quiet beer or two for liams birthday dinner
Comments
cheers for the plug!! well ive been reading and enjoying your blogs, the perfect companion for my insomnia! i'm off to kill some germans on Medal of Honour. keep well dude, was wicked seeing you and i'm sure i will again at some point in the future. chat soon
benji