Gagnonius the Travel Warrior!
Monday, October 2nd, 2006I want to give you all a little insight into the days I spent traveling from South Africa all the way up to Aberdeen, Scotland. I awoke on the morning on the 28th of September. My things were packed and I was ready to move on. My flight left at 1055 a.m. I arrived at the airport shortly after 9 in the morning with what I assumed was plenty of time to make my flight. I walked inside the international departure terminal and took a quick look at the lines as they zig zagged all over and thought there was no way I was making my flight. I took a look up at the board to see the massive array of destinations all around the world that people were waiting to go to. I asked a few people in what looked to be lines where they were going and non of them where where I was going, Congo, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, oh boy! I manged to find my line and waited patiently as it slowly inched forward. After a few minutes I was asked by a lady working for the airline I was on to take a quick detour to the first class desk to check in since I was traveling by myself. I must have had a stockpile of Karma as I was very happy by this latest development. I checked in, proceeded through immigration, collected another stamp in an already full passport and headed to the gate with time to spare. I spent the rest of my South African Rand at the shop and boarded the plane. My Gulf Air flight was destined for Bahrain. Bahrain lies in the middle of the Persian Gulf just off the coast of Saudi Arabia. I would have a 4.5 hour layover there before getting to London. The flight to Bahrain was about 8 hours. We cruised up and over the east coast of Africa before crossing over Saudia Arabai and touching down on the tiny little island nation of Bahrain. I walked around the airport a few hundred times and looked at the duty free shops until I was blue in the face until my plane to London departed at 130 in the morning. The flight to London was pleasant. I had an emergency exit row seat with loads of legroom. From Bahrain the plane headed north over Iraq and across Europe to London. It was quite strange to fly over Iraq and look down and see the lights of some of the cities. A country that is always at the center of war and controversy and that always seems so distant and far away was now lying about 35,000 feet just below me. At 630 in the morning we finnally touched down in London’s Heathrow Airport. I proceeded to immigration and was asked every question imaginable by the officer on duty. In the end he knew more about me than anyone should ever know and I’m not quite sure what he would do with that information but it got me into the country so i guess it was necessary.
My flight to Scotland wasn’t until 8 P.M. that evening but I figured I could get on an earlier one without a problem…bad idea. I first thought my flight to Aberdeen was out of Heathrow but upon closer inspection of my receipt realized it was out of Gatwick and not Heathrow. I then had to board a bus to Gatwick Airport which is about 90 minutes away. Upon arrival I was told by the woman behind the counter that there was only one other flight to Aberdeen that was already full and because of the restrictions on my ticket couldn’t get on it anyway even if it wasn’t full.
I was pretty much in for one of the longest days in airport history. I pretty much felt like Tom Hank’s character in the movie, Terminal. I wandered aimlessly around the departure lounges and duty free shops like a zombie as I had been without sleep for quite a while. I watched BBC news at a pub about 500 times and pretty much knew everything about what was happening in and around the United Kingdom. I then memorized every single announcement made over the public address system and was saying them quietly to myself as they were being broadcast to the airport passengers. it was such a long day I honestly don’t know how I managed to not go crazy. When my flight to Aberdeen finally touched down it had been almost 36 hours of straight traveling, out of this world. So as great as traveling is and seeing all these amazing things is keep in mind that getting to these places is not exactly that exciting. The worst part about traveling sometimes is the actually traveling. Would I have given those two days back to be sitting in traffic or be at work? Absolutely Not. You take the good with the bad and move forward.
I will leave you now with this one completely random thought. For some reason the country of Ghana a small nation on the coast in eastern Africa got into my head while I was sitting in a dazed state at the airport. Perhaps I saw the country being named in a newspaper article or on the news or something but it made me think of this. Are people from Ghana called Ghanarians?
Gagnonius