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Well there is a moral to the beginning of my travels - leave plenty of time!
Why do airlines want you to arrive 2 hours before your flight? To avoid situations like this...
I arrived at the airport 2 hours before my flight and (being 5.30am) decided to have a coffee and muffin before dropping my bag. It's an uncivilised time in the morning and small luxuries like blueberry muffins make the time slightly more bareable.
This would be fine if I didn't then join the slowest queue in the world - things were not made better by the over exuberant cheeriness of the Great Britain baseball team - and queued for half an hour.
So I'm now an hour away from my 7.30am take off. This would again be fine, apart from the sign that says allow 40 mins before your gate closes from this point and my gate closed at 7am. Coupled with the stewardesss who said my bag was an unnusual and needed to be dropped off at the other side of the airport (cue rant aimed at airlines who think backpacks are unnusual sizes. There are millions upon millions of people backpacking around the world with backpacks just like mine. What is unnusual about that!) and a need to get currency, I was pushing my luck.
I now have 30 minutes until my gate closes, have got to get through security and have to pick up my prebooked cash from air side.
Slightly flustered, I begin my sprint ( happy for all the recent training) and am brought to a hault by what looks like a young jimmy kranky in a broad ulster strop with his brother. Given my mild temprament, I took this in my stride, patiently waiting and not pushing passed the tired and emotional young man.
Through security with 15 mins to go, I got my cash from a helpful yet slow lady. Not sensing my urgency, she told me I had lots of time and asked me probing questions about my holiday.
As the phrase "I'll just start the paperwork for the travellers cheques" passed her lips, I cancelled them and ran to get the shuttle to the gate.
"Please check your boarding card before you get on the shuttle" droned the announcer. Programmed to follow instructions like Pavlov's dog, I gazed down at my boarding card and found nothing!
Now I couldn't repeat what I said, but I did begin to run back to the cash desk and cue slow lady slowly shaking her head (life is a different pace on the bureau de change).
Next, back to security where a security guard informed me that you didn't really need a boarding card and just turn up to my gate, but I better be quick.
Back to the shuttle. Next shuttle will be in 1 minute. I glance at my watch. 3 minutes.
On the shuttle, 2 minutes.
Off the shuttle, 1 minute.
Boarding gate, 30 seconds.
And with a roll of a stewardess' eyes, I got onto the plane to a complete result of having the emergency exit row free.
Well with ample leg room and a heart rate slowly returning to normal I can look forward to 27 degree heat!
Leave plenty of time...
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