Wednesday 23rd of December, 2009
and generally linger
We give it another shot - up at 6:00. I go out to try to find a toothbrush to replace the one I dropped in the toilet last night (!) and a new shaving stick. Boots at Waterloo Station has neither, but they do have a lot of sandwiches. No other chemists seem to be open.
To Borough Station and then to London City Airport. We arrive three hours before the flight. Sadly, they only allow check-in two hours before the flight. I go and look for the toiletries at a local Chemist - no joy, though I do get the shaving stick from a corner shop. Back at the airport, as soon as our check-in is coming up, the B.A. queue becomes insanely long - apparantly some small problem has got out of hand. Many people becoming stressed, and there aren't even any extreme weather conditions. It's just an ordinary mess. Eventually check in and go into the departure lounge, where we wait. The flight's delayed a bit. Eventually go to the other waiting room, where we wait, then onto the plane, where we wait, and finally the plane takes off, and it seems like we might be on our way.
Land at the very snowy Schiphol airport. Disembark, and do some more waiting, although we find toothbrush heads and an airline headphone adaptor (hurray), and drink coffee, eat an excellent sandwich and generally linger.
There's an extra security screening thing before getting on the plane, which is then delayed by needing to be de-iced (which is an impressive procedure, and I'm prepared to wait for any procedure to be applied if it's going to stop me falling from the sky).
On the plane, after it's taken off - dinner, District 9 (Excellent, and apparantly untrimmed, which is a wonderful thing that personal televisions have done for us), then watch The Mummy (old Airline cut), then try to fall asleep despite the fact that the person in front of me has their blind open, which betrays the fact that it's day out there (and endless Russian steppes, to boot).
