Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
The day home started with frantic packing, distributing heavy objects in amongst all the luggage to lighten the load of other cases.
We arrived at the airport well ahead of time and the next challenge was to find where to return the car.We started by following the signs for rental car return.Our first attempt ended up with us driving through the arrivals passenger taxi rank, yet in sight of the Avis signs.Confident now we knew where to return the car we tried again completing a full circuit of the airport.This time we ended up on the top of the car park driving by the departures drop off point, but no sign of the Avis sign.Getting a little miffed I decided to ask a policeman who was handily loitering chatting up some women.Question 1: Do you speak English, answer NO, not really.Unperturbed and ignoring the guys answer; I asked question 2, where do I return this hire car.The answer was a little confusing and in very broken English, that it was in the upside whilst pointing down.A clear instruction if ever there was.Following another circuit of the airport we chose another one of the roads by the car rental return sign, this time down into a tunnel beneath the airport.Following the curve and down the slope we were greeted by a gate blocking our route, with no room to turn around.By now it was becoming obvious to anyone within ½ a mile that I was not my usual cheery self.I reversed back up the slope, around the curve, and back along the 1 way system until I could get to a point to commence another now familiar circuit of the airport.We continued to do our best and failed comprehensively, having many circuits of the airport.Finally we returned to where we had met the policeman, and were shocked to see an Avis sign next to him, pointing us into the car park.I cannot help but think he was having a good laugh at us as he had been obscuring the sign on our last circuit.
Our next challenge was to find a trolley to carry the many bags.We looked all over for them but found nothing, and more to the point these was no lift.I carried all the bags down to the ground floor, running up and down the stairs, then looked out over the road to the terminal and found a heard of trolleys (thankfully)
The airport was quite small, and not that busy, so finding the check in desk we queued and I tried to check in.Obviously I had way too much luggage and was sent to another desk to pay the excess.I dare not tell you how much it cost, but then I had to queue up again to check in.I let them examine the contents, and the final thing I said to them was to add a fragile sticker as they were expensive panniers, and any damage would not be acceptable.
We sat people watching for a while, and were surprised that there seemed to be less and less people in the place.This continued for about 5 or 10 minutes until we were the only people in the terminal.We looked behind us, and were surprised to see everyone stood outside looking in at us.I checked my aftershave (check) then decided to act like a sheep and follow them.When we were outside, we asked around until someone spoke English, to be informed there had been a bomb scare.We heard no alarms; no one had come to us to ask us to leave, and best of all, we were stood 2 metres from the terminal, which seemed to be made completely of glass!!!
FINALLY it was time to go through the gate.We joined what seemed to be an everlasting queue that disappeared off into the distance.I was sweltering as I had to wear all my bike gear to cut down on the weight of my luggage.When we got close to the scanners, I noticed about 80% of the queue were family members of the passengers who were not flying, but just irritating me by hugging and kissing their relatives who were going to fly as if they would never see them again.
- comments