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Published: April 22nd 2009
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now, you may be wondering as to the location of this blog entry... let me tell you a story, it will take the whole blog!
i was well excited to be back on the british airways plane and heading back to england for all of 6 hours, brill, get to see the family, show the photos and have some well earned good food, then back on the plane with kate and elle for phase 2.
so i had my pane food (very nice), watched as many ENGLISH SPEAKING films and tv shows as i could possibly fit in and had a right old time.. it was so easy. had to cross the whole of heathrow to get to terminal 5 which was a tad annoying but got there and found everyone fine. so we went to the cafe, milled about a bit, found kate, checked in. tried to sort my bank stuff out ( i hate banks, more than any institution in the world) and went for dinner. it was fine, the security bit was right next to the pub so we had loads of time before i had to go through. and wanted to spend as much time
as pos we stayed on the check in side. it came to the point of goodbyes, some tears were shed and i headed to the security... no queue, great. but the woman scanned my passport and said 'dont say your goodbyes too fast, youve got to go back to passport control' why? she didnt say. i went back, past the rents to figure it out. the guy just scanned my passport and said 'oh yes, youve just missed going through security, youve missed your flight'... excuse me.. what? what are you talking about? 'you were supposed to be in departures 35mins before your flight, youve missed it by 3 mins, youve missed yur flight'. oh....... my........ god!!! all hell broke loose. we went to customer service, tried everything. id actually missed it, there was nothing they could do. strict airport rules. unbelievable. and ba couldnt do anything to find me another flight, coz id booked a round the world with sta. i had to contact them. they were shut. i was going back to brighton.
theres so much more.
once the initial shock was over and id got hold of kate, who was on the flight, having gone
through departures some time before me, i calmed down and went to get my bags. it was fine, i wasnt on, it was illegal for my bag to be on. it would be here, the plane was already in the sky. so i went to baggage reclaim. they couldnt find my bag. i hadnt checked anything in. yes i had. one rucksack. unmissable. no no, elenor beck checked in 3 bags, you checked in none. the guy that checked us had done it. he was a nice guy, had sorted out a dispute over a payment for a date change for us. unfortunately now he was in a lot of trouble. and my bag was in the air on its way to dar es salaam. could my day get any worse?!?! he dude promised to get a message to kate at the other end to pick it up. the last thing he wanted was to leave a bag there. great. no bag, the bag with all my clothes in and stuff could possibly be lost in transit. brilliant.
so we went home. i was already arranging to see people. i knew the next flight wasnt until sat, and it
was wed. yippee. but i had to go and sort it all out at sta tomo. fine.
on the way back ba called mums phone, dont even ask how they got the number, and said their security needed to talk to me. they asked why i was on but my bag wasnt... i told them their mistake, not mine, i quite wanted my bag. then they asked why my friends were on but i wasnt, my mistake. i explained the whole thing to them and they seemed satisfied.
i wasted no time in rocking out to see mates as soon as i got in, it was so so bizzare, here i was back in brighton, not intending to see it for years, with noone knowing what was going on, when i would leave, and not having any stuff, and essentially a bad (but good) turn out to the day. at kt's i got another phone call, mum, 'call kate shes trying to call you'. what? she cant use a phone, shes in the air. 'no, shes in heathrow'. i kid you not. guess what they did... coz my bag was on but i wasnt they turned the whole
plane around after 2 hours and bought it and everyone with it back..just to get my bag off. can you even believe that!!!! because of a whole 3 minutes and several causes and effects and chain of events they turned the whole damn plane around. how much it cost them is anyones guess. i guess a hell of a lot.. and probably someones job. ouch. and if id have stayed at the airport? they would have let me on.
now is that a story worthy of one entire blog entry or what! story of the year id even go as far as saying.
so i had to buy a new flight, even though the girl in sta did everything she could. i stocked up on good food, cider and rose wine and saw and partied with as many of my mates as possible (in the globe pub mainly, dancing to classics with your bezzi friends cannot be beaten!). so much fun, i couldnt have asked for more. it was like id never been away. so when the 48 hrs were over it was just as surreal to be saying goodbye all over again and heading off back on
the travelling adventure.
what started as the distaster of the year turned into the best surprise of the year ever. amazing.
love you all and miss you more.
hol
xxx
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Dad
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The answer
You did it on purpose didnt you? haha