Stags, Jets and Chains.

Why is it that i only seem to write blogs after travelling? Perhaps it's only then that my life becomes intresting enough to write about, or at least it's an event that throws up perculiar situations with startling regularity. Ah well, here goes another outpouring of tedium interspersed with mild wit.

Easyjet flight EZY6503, East midlands airport to Ruzyne, Prague. It's the first time i've flown with sleazyjet and the first time i've flown from EMA. Finding EMA wasn't a problem and it didn't really take that long to get there, it was well signed, which is good.
They say your opinions of a place are sealed within the first few seconds of seeing something or someone, it's true, within a moment of seeing the terminal i had compared, in my mind, the building to a motorway service station, a single story affair that looked like it was never intended to see international traffic at all.

Going inside i was struck by the low ceiling (not something you accociate with an airport), a total lack of organisation, and the smell that only an aircraft hanger has, a sort of mix between between aviation fuel and oil. I wasn't so impressed.

Fleasyjet have a "self service checkin" at EMA, which is possibly the most stupid thing in the world, ever. First you queue up to check yourself in and get your baggage tags and boarding card, then you queue up all over again to dump your bag on the conveyerbelt, at which point the staff still have to ask all the questions and see your passport. After waiting about an hour in the queue, on went my bag and i headed in the direction of the gents, some 30 minutes later i found them.

Then it was off through passport control and security. At birmingham it's coats off, bags and metal bits on the scanner. At east mids, it's all that, and then you have to take your laptop out of your laptop bag. Why? They've got a f**king x-ray machine? It's just more hassle. At this point the stag party in front of me noticed the attractive security woman on the body scanner. I swear they all left change in thier pockets specificly to get felt up by her.

My laptop and laptop bag went through fine, no problem. Then they came to my animal bag, contents: one kryptonite new yorker chain.

"You can't take that on the plane sir"
"Sorry?"
"We can't allow you to take that onto the plane sir"
"It's a bike lock!"
"It needs to go as checked baggage sir"

At this point i was seriously considering putting it round my neck and calling it jewelery, Mr T manages it, why shouldn't i? As it was it was back to the check in desk. Another queue was entered. Waited for. Cursed at.
"You can't put that rucksack on this conveyer sir, it needs to go to the outsized luggage conveyer"
"You're kidding"
"Fraid not, it's just at the other end of departures"
So, my small animal bag, now classed as outsized luggage was checked in.
Back through passports and security i went. Laptop out, wallet, phone, keys, everything out. Done, through, sorted.

Through to the departure lounge, you may recall me noting that the outside looked like a motorway service station. Well, the inside here looked exactly like a motorway service station. Even down to the peeling paint. I got out my very secure laptop (they'd checked it twice) and started to watch a movie, my laptop bag on the other side of the table.

5 minutes later along comes a security bloke;
"That your laptop bag mate?"
Bear in mind that i've got my laptop on and in front of me.
"Yes"
"Uh, uh, well just don't leave bags unattended"
Now come on guys, you've x-rayed the bloody thing to go on a plane and now you're getting twitchy about it being more than a metre away from me? Get real!
An hour later they called the flight, gate 5. I sauntered over to gate five. Took a seat, waited. Waited some more. Then the breezeyjet staff arrived. Set up the desk. Opened the door. Looked as through they were going to start boarding. And then closed the door and desk, and changed the gate call to 6. Gate six was right next to gate five, and they're just doors onto the apron, we had no bus to board, just had a walk to the plane! Pure randomness. Anyway, gate six was passed through and i walked towards a very new looking, if slightly orange, measlyjet aircraft. As we queued to get on the plane up the steps i could feel the steps rocking from side to side, swaying with every step that people took, like that bridge in London. It was really offputting!

If you've flown with crazyjet, you'll know that once you're on the plane it's a free for all, there's no seat numbers, so you just grab what's available. I grabbed an empty row, parking my weary arse in a window seat behind the wing. Sitting behind the wing is noisier than further forward, but you get to see the flaps and whatever.

The plane left the stand 20 minutes late, at which point i realised why the row was empty. The row behind, the adjacent row and the rows behind them contained that stag party from eariler, they'd spent every moment from the time they checked in to when they got on the plane in the bar. Great, beered up brits. Love em. Bastards. I endured a flight full of my seat getting knocked and nudged (the most annoying thing in the world, by miles) and the noise. They took a particular liking to the air steward who they instantly assumed was gay. Poor bloke was about as camp as El Cap.

The stag party's contents revealed thier acedemic prowess when one exclaimed, after crossing the north sea, "Hey look, i can see France!" I considered for a moment informing them that it was Holland and that the plane wasn't going to one of the Spanish Chav resorts. After an otherwise uneventful flight the Captain informed us of the weather in Prague. "-1C, snow, windy"

There was an exclamation from behind as the stag party realised that a long sleeved tshirt wasn't going to cut it. I chuckled to myself. As we decended i looked through the window towards the wingtip, each flash of the strobe on the end of the wing revealing for a fleeting moment the blizzard outside. Time progressed and EZY6503 headed towards a frozen terra firma, wrapped in a thin white sheet of snow, fresh and still falling, all the time turning a dusting into a blanket. Within minutes the airport was in sight and we were touching the runway, possibly the most gentle landing i've ever experienced, there was no bump, i only wish i could land like that!

I exited the plane rapidly, pausing only to look at the snow that was somehow falling inside the skybridge. I was eager to avoid the rush at the baggage belt. Unfortunatly they'd put four flights on the same belt, ah well. My bags were the last off of course, so by the time i got out of the airport it was 10pm CET, having landed at 9.

A quick bustrip and a short while on the metro and i arrived at my flat. Bags were dropped , coat swapped and i went back out. I needed milk for tea. Speaking of which, my kettle just boiled, which means it's time to stop rambling. I'll blog my week at home sometime, maybe tomorrow, tell the filthy masses about the forum ride, dental appointments, riding the chase and driving cars.