Travelling

So, I have been travelling again for bit and have a few random thoughts on the topic.

I am sure that it is not just me, and that it is not actually some great conspiracy, or personal vendetta, but sometimes it seems it. What can really go wrong with transatlantic travel in these days of advanced technology has always been my thought. Surely nothing. Oh how wrong I was. Admittedly none of these events are the end of the world, but they are fucking irritating when one is impatient to get to one’s destination and the woman they love. On journeys in the opposite direction they are admittedly almost inconsequential. Nothing to look forward to in that direction.

Well, now I am assured of one thing, that anything that can go wrong whilst travelling, will likely happen to me in some capacity. What sort of things do I mean? What sort of things piss me off when travelling? Some examples of things that have happened to me, on nearly every trip, are delayed flights, cancelled flights, lost luggage, airport transit failures, weather induced delays and failures, and a whole host of other situations.

Why when the weather is beautiful and perfectly acceptable for weeks, does it change to snow and ice the moment you leave for the airport, slowing down your journey to the airport and ensuring that you arrive only in the nick of time and have to race around through security and run for the aeroplane, only to find that it has been delayed because the plane hasn’t turned up, or my favourite, the plane is here but the pilot has failed to arrive.

Then there is the situation when you spend ages on the plane whilst they de-ice and carry out checks, taxiing to the runway, coming back, going to the runway again, then get thundering down the runway before slamming on the brakes, opening parachutes to slow us down before we shoot off the end of the runway, returning to the terminal and cancelling the flight. Then the joys of spending four hours in a queue – a favourite pastime of mine of course – waiting to be re-routed, arguing with the airline that you do not want half a dozen connections and to be travelling for three days, before they finally put you up in a hotel, providing vouchers insufficient to feed a mouse, and an unappealingly early start to the day, following a late night since they have spent so long re-routing you. Sorry for the long sentences – you can breathe when you like.

As annoying as these things are, my true ire is reserved for that pleasure of pleasures, the lost luggage. Every time I have travelled, I have ended up in one place, with my luggage in a completely different place, usually where my last connection was. Why is it always me though? I look, and everyone else’s luggage is there. Why the fuck me? The most recent time my luggage was delayed by three days with no expectation of my seeing it again. That is of course, until I had been and re-clothed myself at Walmart, when I then instantly got a message saying that my luggage would be with me the next day. It is always on the outward trip too, when your need for your luggage is at its greatest. Who wants to meet their loved one after travelling for many hours unable to change into clean clothes and have a wash and brush up?

So, enough of my inane rambling. I could go on for hours bitching and whining like a little girl, and although it would be fun for me, would bore the fucking shit out of you guys. So out of respect for your sensibilities, and indeed for your time, which I humbly apologise for wasting with my ravings, I will end this post here.

I lied. I didn’t end it there. I have a request for comments. Any interesting trials and tribulations about travelling, especially transatlantic travel would be great to hear. Please comment and we can have ourselves a bitch fest. Although I may take a while to answer comments.