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HellTrek Diary, Part One
And thus it begins...
Travels With My Pumpkin
Part one: Get me out of here!
It all began, as these things so often do, during a conversation over Instant Messenger.
Lia, Fiendy and myself were getting all excited over the recently-announced Helloween tourdates, and it was suggested that it might be possible for for myself and Slay to fly over and visit Lia for the Milan date. Milan being, as Lia explained patiently to this geographically-challenged english person, a mere hour and a half’s drive away from Turin.
And that, for the moment, was that. Several months later and decisions had to be made; firstly, that I would be travelling solo. This was not a decision met with enthusiasm from home, but as I’m used to being sulked at I rose above it and booked my flight. Thirty quid with RyanAir?
Bargain.
Flights, hotels and gig tickets booked we thought we’d cracked it. I would drive my car to the airport, leave it there while we pranced around Turin and Milan. Then I’d drive home, and the following day drive to Oxford where we’d catch the bus to London, leaving the car at the bus station in preparation for our triumphant return. It was a good plan; it meant that I didn’t have to bother Sulky Husband for anything, gave us our independance and also meant we could smoke in the car, my beat up little beast being little more than a mobile ashtray at the best of times.
Unfortunately, some specimen of pond life decided to screw the plan up a week before crunch day.
My poor little car, veteran of many gig trips and sundry other Adventures, was broken into and so badly damaged that the insurance company donned the black cap and declared it a write-off. Uneconomical to repair - which was no surprise with a sixteen year old car but still a damn shame. It was a decent little motor, rarely let me down, and had a good few years of reliable service left in it.
I hope their testicles rot, I really do.
Anyway, this meant some frantic last-minute rearrangement, including cancelling the car park space I’d booked at the airport and trying to find alternative transport to and from the various stages of our wanderings. In the end I had to bite the bullet and get Sulky Husband to do it; not ideal but hell. Any port in a storm, right?
Come the day, and I clamber out of the car armed with suitcase and carry on bag, looking as though I’m staying for a month and not merely a few days. In my defence, I’d packed my Going Out gear - consisting of corset, silky little things and enough makeup and stuff to tart up a particularly badly run over corpse - as well as plenty of t shirts and a couple of huge fleeces. After all, if the Winter Olympics were being held in Turin it was unlikely to be sunny and warm, was it?
Of course, once I’d staggered into the terminal building - via a camera stop to take a shot of a family clearly chuffed to bits to have arrived in windy, chilly Essex - I realised that I’d left my mobile in the car.
Crap.
I staggered around in ever-decreasing circles in search of a payphone, frustration building. In this day and age of the ubiquitous mobile phone, who needs a payphone?
Well, right now? Me.
Anyway, I found one and hit upon the great idea of actually calling my own mobile; if it was indeed still in the car then His Nibs would hear it and either answer it or stuff the car looking for it. Result one would mean he could come back and give it to me - as I was at the airport ridiculously early - and result two would at least mean I could claim on his life insurance. Sweet.
The result was actually three - in that my phone began to ring deep in the recesses of a pocket of my leather jacket. I keep forgetting that the pockets on the damn thing are so long I have to indulge in yoga-like contortions to get to the bottom of them. This is why Myrtle the Turtle travels with me everywhere. I stuck her in the pocket of my leather when I bought her and thus, said pockets being large enough to hide a tiny stuffed turtle, she’s been to gigs and flown to Iceland, Europe, America....
But I digress.
Phone found, I could mooch off and figure out what to do with the scads of time I had before getting on the damn plane. I texted Lia, who was excited. I found the smoking area. I had a sandwich. I bought a book to read and - in a fit of enthusiasm - an Italian phrasebook. Lia found this hysterical.
And I waited.
Time passed.
Eventually, about four years later, I was able to check in and dump my ridiculous suitcase. Checked in and boarding card in hand it was time to brave security and head airside; now, for a start I’d never seen such a long damn queue. Second, I knew there were various items I was going to have to remove in order to avoid being frisked. I know it isn’t as bad as a strip search - and I hope to Christ I never have one of those - but it’s embarrassing and I loathe having a stranger run their hands all over my body. I do honest.
Thus, being that I was travelling whilst wearing the Boots Of Doom (very fancy New Rocks, for those who haven’t seen them) and adorned with my usual four-row-conical-stud belt I knew I was going to have to pretty much strip before I hit that horrid little gate thingy that so loves to beep at me. Remove your outer coat, says the signs. It should say Remove Anything That Will Go Beep.
Shuffling along with all the other sheep I began to disrobe once we got close. Boots, belt, jacket, empty pockets of metallic items. So there’s everybody else with their coats hung neatly over their arms, and me...
Well. There I was, in my stocking feet, belt rattling around my neck trying to get a good look round, denim-over-leather jacket trying to crawl away and play with the drug dogs, hands cramping from carrying the Boots Of Doom that were also wriggling and whining like badly behaved children. They hate being carried. Oh, and being forced to stand and listen to the conversation behind me, because the brace of bimbo airheads were chatting away at the tops of their voices. I would have tuned them out if I could, but not even the wriggling and whining of my various metal accoutrements could smother it....
“Yeah, we went to this island in Papeete--”
“Oh, we went there!”
“Yeah, it was just us in a hut with four other travellers.”
“Was it good?”
“It was boring! We played cards. Nothing to do, just stuck on a desert island in the middle of the Caribbean, no nightlife...”
Certain examples of overprivileged English youth should never be allowed to leave our shores, in my humble opinion. These two where whining about how Foreign Places are dull, boring and not a patch on the nightclubs of Ibiza and Brighton. Oh, and they didn’t see what all the fuss was about as regards India or Tibet.
I rest my case.
I was pleased to see the security gate. Finally, I could get away from the well-spoken cretins I was stuck next to without having to beat them to death first. The belt was nudging my ear and suggesting just that course of action, backed up by the boots; the jacket couldn’t care less, as all it wanted was to frolic alone through the departure lounge and scare the tourists.
It took four of those nasty plastic trays to get it all through the x ray machine, and the jacket cried all the way through. I think the belt was pinching it.
Through the grey gate, and hurrah! No alarms. This was the first time in God-alone-knows how many trips that I’d managed to avoid bells, whistles and alarms; obviously, my impromptu strip tease in the line had done the trick. Stepping forward with a light heart and a happy smile I jumped when the lady security guard touched my arm and indicated I should assume the position.
“But the alarm didn’t go off!”
“Just routine, madam. Random check.”
Shit! Shit!
And damn, was she thorough. I eyeballed her while she ran her hands over my flinching body, thoroughly checking Suspicious Bulgy Bits for anything contraband, naughty or indeed explosive. No madam, it’s all just me I think you’ll find. And watch those nails, do.
“I stripped it all off to avoid this, you know.”
“Sorry,” she said with a grin, not looking sorry at all. Mind you, she looked like she had a sense of humour; rare as this is amongst airport security my mouth decided to shoot off in order to test the hypothesis. The fact that I was getting pissed off didn’t help me to catch it before it moved, either.
“You’re just doing this because you like me, aren’t you?”
She winked. “Who, me?”
Security one, Andy nil.
Search over (damn I hate those things) I padded across to the table where my belongings had formed a circle and were growling at the people collecting their more conventional bits and pieces. The belt snaked through the loops with a sigh, and I was reaching for my boots when--
“I think we’ll just run these through separately. They’ve got a lot of metal in them.”
What? You insufferably stupid little security man. Like I’m going to strut through security wearing enough metal to set off every alarm in every airport in Western Europe and try to sneak something dangerous through? Do you really think terrorists are that stupid? Because if you do we could all be in a lot of trouble.
I said nothing, just listened to my boots whimpering in the iron grip of the security guy and ground my teeth. And I was suitably polite when receiving them back - even if the chap did look rather disappointed that he hadn’t discovered any semtex lurking in the soles.
Definitely irritated, I went for a mooch.
Sometimes, I swear, the reason they send you airside so long before your flight is in order to pry the maximum amount of cash from you. So I mooched and I spent and I bought tea bags which, as ever, I’d forgotten to pack. Pillock. Because one cannot get English tea - not decent English tea, anyway - overseas. And without my tea I get decidedly grumpy and difficult to deal with. More difficult. Hard as that is to believe. Sometimes I think I wander the globe teaching foreigners to make decent tea like some latter-day earthbound Arthur Dent, but I digress.
Found the smoking area. Texted Lia. Her replies were so excited by now that she was descending into animal noises. Tried to call Fiendy - no dice. Called Slay (told you I was bored) and yapped at him for a while. Smoked. Drank water. Eyed the departures board. Wait in lounge. Bought a cup of tea.
Go to gate.
Bastards!
Always, always, always. I buy a cup of outrageously priced tea and boom, I gotta go get on the plane. Bastards.
Still. Off I clomped, Boots Of Doom snarling at commuters, and discovered that for once my luck was in; the smoking area by the gates was directly opposite the gate I was boarding through. Wheee! So I made a spirited attempt to smoke myself into a stupor before being called to board. Now, because I’d been one of the first to check in - boredom makes you sharp when it comes to that sort of thing, as does arriving so early it’s stupid - I had a nice low number on my boarding pass, which meant I was one of the first on the plane. Bliss! Get on, smile at the flight attendant, head for the overwing seats with the emergency exit, bag in the locker, jacket the same (ignoring its strenuous protests that it wanted to look out of the window) and plonk, make self comfortable.
Why the overwing seat? Well, several reasons. Anything by an emergency exit has a little more legroom. I only have little legs but I prefer not to have them wedged under the seat in front, thank you. Plus, in an emergency I can have that door open and be out before you can say ‘mountain? What mountain?’
Studies have indicated that people who make their exit plans when they get on a plane have a tendency to survive getting off the damn thing if anything goes wrong. Now, I used to work with aircraft; I know that although trouble is rare, it does happen. And it’s often survivable. And if it is one of those that it’s possible to get out from I intend to be one of the ones being interviewed by the press once the smoke has cleared, thank you very much.
Thus. Exit plans made and laid I sat back, watched the contortions of the cabin crew as they went through the safety checks, and waited for the engines to start. I was on my way!
~*~
TBC...
Travels With My Pumpkin
Part one: Get me out of here!
It all began, as these things so often do, during a conversation over Instant Messenger.
Lia, Fiendy and myself were getting all excited over the recently-announced Helloween tourdates, and it was suggested that it might be possible for for myself and Slay to fly over and visit Lia for the Milan date. Milan being, as Lia explained patiently to this geographically-challenged english person, a mere hour and a half’s drive away from Turin.
And that, for the moment, was that. Several months later and decisions had to be made; firstly, that I would be travelling solo. This was not a decision met with enthusiasm from home, but as I’m used to being sulked at I rose above it and booked my flight. Thirty quid with RyanAir?
Bargain.
Flights, hotels and gig tickets booked we thought we’d cracked it. I would drive my car to the airport, leave it there while we pranced around Turin and Milan. Then I’d drive home, and the following day drive to Oxford where we’d catch the bus to London, leaving the car at the bus station in preparation for our triumphant return. It was a good plan; it meant that I didn’t have to bother Sulky Husband for anything, gave us our independance and also meant we could smoke in the car, my beat up little beast being little more than a mobile ashtray at the best of times.
Unfortunately, some specimen of pond life decided to screw the plan up a week before crunch day.
My poor little car, veteran of many gig trips and sundry other Adventures, was broken into and so badly damaged that the insurance company donned the black cap and declared it a write-off. Uneconomical to repair - which was no surprise with a sixteen year old car but still a damn shame. It was a decent little motor, rarely let me down, and had a good few years of reliable service left in it.
I hope their testicles rot, I really do.
Anyway, this meant some frantic last-minute rearrangement, including cancelling the car park space I’d booked at the airport and trying to find alternative transport to and from the various stages of our wanderings. In the end I had to bite the bullet and get Sulky Husband to do it; not ideal but hell. Any port in a storm, right?
Come the day, and I clamber out of the car armed with suitcase and carry on bag, looking as though I’m staying for a month and not merely a few days. In my defence, I’d packed my Going Out gear - consisting of corset, silky little things and enough makeup and stuff to tart up a particularly badly run over corpse - as well as plenty of t shirts and a couple of huge fleeces. After all, if the Winter Olympics were being held in Turin it was unlikely to be sunny and warm, was it?
Of course, once I’d staggered into the terminal building - via a camera stop to take a shot of a family clearly chuffed to bits to have arrived in windy, chilly Essex - I realised that I’d left my mobile in the car.
Crap.
I staggered around in ever-decreasing circles in search of a payphone, frustration building. In this day and age of the ubiquitous mobile phone, who needs a payphone?
Well, right now? Me.
Anyway, I found one and hit upon the great idea of actually calling my own mobile; if it was indeed still in the car then His Nibs would hear it and either answer it or stuff the car looking for it. Result one would mean he could come back and give it to me - as I was at the airport ridiculously early - and result two would at least mean I could claim on his life insurance. Sweet.
The result was actually three - in that my phone began to ring deep in the recesses of a pocket of my leather jacket. I keep forgetting that the pockets on the damn thing are so long I have to indulge in yoga-like contortions to get to the bottom of them. This is why Myrtle the Turtle travels with me everywhere. I stuck her in the pocket of my leather when I bought her and thus, said pockets being large enough to hide a tiny stuffed turtle, she’s been to gigs and flown to Iceland, Europe, America....
But I digress.
Phone found, I could mooch off and figure out what to do with the scads of time I had before getting on the damn plane. I texted Lia, who was excited. I found the smoking area. I had a sandwich. I bought a book to read and - in a fit of enthusiasm - an Italian phrasebook. Lia found this hysterical.
And I waited.
Time passed.
Eventually, about four years later, I was able to check in and dump my ridiculous suitcase. Checked in and boarding card in hand it was time to brave security and head airside; now, for a start I’d never seen such a long damn queue. Second, I knew there were various items I was going to have to remove in order to avoid being frisked. I know it isn’t as bad as a strip search - and I hope to Christ I never have one of those - but it’s embarrassing and I loathe having a stranger run their hands all over my body. I do honest.
Thus, being that I was travelling whilst wearing the Boots Of Doom (very fancy New Rocks, for those who haven’t seen them) and adorned with my usual four-row-conical-stud belt I knew I was going to have to pretty much strip before I hit that horrid little gate thingy that so loves to beep at me. Remove your outer coat, says the signs. It should say Remove Anything That Will Go Beep.
Shuffling along with all the other sheep I began to disrobe once we got close. Boots, belt, jacket, empty pockets of metallic items. So there’s everybody else with their coats hung neatly over their arms, and me...
Well. There I was, in my stocking feet, belt rattling around my neck trying to get a good look round, denim-over-leather jacket trying to crawl away and play with the drug dogs, hands cramping from carrying the Boots Of Doom that were also wriggling and whining like badly behaved children. They hate being carried. Oh, and being forced to stand and listen to the conversation behind me, because the brace of bimbo airheads were chatting away at the tops of their voices. I would have tuned them out if I could, but not even the wriggling and whining of my various metal accoutrements could smother it....
“Yeah, we went to this island in Papeete--”
“Oh, we went there!”
“Yeah, it was just us in a hut with four other travellers.”
“Was it good?”
“It was boring! We played cards. Nothing to do, just stuck on a desert island in the middle of the Caribbean, no nightlife...”
Certain examples of overprivileged English youth should never be allowed to leave our shores, in my humble opinion. These two where whining about how Foreign Places are dull, boring and not a patch on the nightclubs of Ibiza and Brighton. Oh, and they didn’t see what all the fuss was about as regards India or Tibet.
I rest my case.
I was pleased to see the security gate. Finally, I could get away from the well-spoken cretins I was stuck next to without having to beat them to death first. The belt was nudging my ear and suggesting just that course of action, backed up by the boots; the jacket couldn’t care less, as all it wanted was to frolic alone through the departure lounge and scare the tourists.
It took four of those nasty plastic trays to get it all through the x ray machine, and the jacket cried all the way through. I think the belt was pinching it.
Through the grey gate, and hurrah! No alarms. This was the first time in God-alone-knows how many trips that I’d managed to avoid bells, whistles and alarms; obviously, my impromptu strip tease in the line had done the trick. Stepping forward with a light heart and a happy smile I jumped when the lady security guard touched my arm and indicated I should assume the position.
“But the alarm didn’t go off!”
“Just routine, madam. Random check.”
Shit! Shit!
And damn, was she thorough. I eyeballed her while she ran her hands over my flinching body, thoroughly checking Suspicious Bulgy Bits for anything contraband, naughty or indeed explosive. No madam, it’s all just me I think you’ll find. And watch those nails, do.
“I stripped it all off to avoid this, you know.”
“Sorry,” she said with a grin, not looking sorry at all. Mind you, she looked like she had a sense of humour; rare as this is amongst airport security my mouth decided to shoot off in order to test the hypothesis. The fact that I was getting pissed off didn’t help me to catch it before it moved, either.
“You’re just doing this because you like me, aren’t you?”
She winked. “Who, me?”
Security one, Andy nil.
Search over (damn I hate those things) I padded across to the table where my belongings had formed a circle and were growling at the people collecting their more conventional bits and pieces. The belt snaked through the loops with a sigh, and I was reaching for my boots when--
“I think we’ll just run these through separately. They’ve got a lot of metal in them.”
What? You insufferably stupid little security man. Like I’m going to strut through security wearing enough metal to set off every alarm in every airport in Western Europe and try to sneak something dangerous through? Do you really think terrorists are that stupid? Because if you do we could all be in a lot of trouble.
I said nothing, just listened to my boots whimpering in the iron grip of the security guy and ground my teeth. And I was suitably polite when receiving them back - even if the chap did look rather disappointed that he hadn’t discovered any semtex lurking in the soles.
Definitely irritated, I went for a mooch.
Sometimes, I swear, the reason they send you airside so long before your flight is in order to pry the maximum amount of cash from you. So I mooched and I spent and I bought tea bags which, as ever, I’d forgotten to pack. Pillock. Because one cannot get English tea - not decent English tea, anyway - overseas. And without my tea I get decidedly grumpy and difficult to deal with. More difficult. Hard as that is to believe. Sometimes I think I wander the globe teaching foreigners to make decent tea like some latter-day earthbound Arthur Dent, but I digress.
Found the smoking area. Texted Lia. Her replies were so excited by now that she was descending into animal noises. Tried to call Fiendy - no dice. Called Slay (told you I was bored) and yapped at him for a while. Smoked. Drank water. Eyed the departures board. Wait in lounge. Bought a cup of tea.
Go to gate.
Bastards!
Always, always, always. I buy a cup of outrageously priced tea and boom, I gotta go get on the plane. Bastards.
Still. Off I clomped, Boots Of Doom snarling at commuters, and discovered that for once my luck was in; the smoking area by the gates was directly opposite the gate I was boarding through. Wheee! So I made a spirited attempt to smoke myself into a stupor before being called to board. Now, because I’d been one of the first to check in - boredom makes you sharp when it comes to that sort of thing, as does arriving so early it’s stupid - I had a nice low number on my boarding pass, which meant I was one of the first on the plane. Bliss! Get on, smile at the flight attendant, head for the overwing seats with the emergency exit, bag in the locker, jacket the same (ignoring its strenuous protests that it wanted to look out of the window) and plonk, make self comfortable.
Why the overwing seat? Well, several reasons. Anything by an emergency exit has a little more legroom. I only have little legs but I prefer not to have them wedged under the seat in front, thank you. Plus, in an emergency I can have that door open and be out before you can say ‘mountain? What mountain?’
Studies have indicated that people who make their exit plans when they get on a plane have a tendency to survive getting off the damn thing if anything goes wrong. Now, I used to work with aircraft; I know that although trouble is rare, it does happen. And it’s often survivable. And if it is one of those that it’s possible to get out from I intend to be one of the ones being interviewed by the press once the smoke has cleared, thank you very much.
Thus. Exit plans made and laid I sat back, watched the contortions of the cabin crew as they went through the safety checks, and waited for the engines to start. I was on my way!
~*~
TBC...
no subject
no subject
Gah, airports...I hate traveling by airplane. Even reading about it's exhausting, but the trip at the end of it is worth it, eh?
no subject
Ryanair, huh? There was a documentary on the other night about how shite they are. Beware any bizarre smells on their planes, it might just be a pile of sick they haven't bothered to clean up!
no subject
Ooo...the next installment is up, must go read....
no subject
She winked. “Who, me?”
Security one, Andy nil.
Fuck that's funny, I'm sorry but it is LMAO
I looove to read your reports, it's like you're sitting across from me and telling me! (over Heather's table of course ;-D)