Sleepy Suffolk

20:15 17/09/2008

It's all ending here. In this dimly lit shack the Romans dare call an airport. It's all ending in Ciampino. This long ignored village of the tourist masses has become a mecca for cheap air travel. And if you think it's only Ryanair's birds that touch down here, think again. Wizzair & Easyjet have also bitten a chunk of the Ciampino airport timeslot cake.

As a result, long lines of tourists, mainly British, line the airport waiting lounge which boasts more broken tiles on the floor than seats for the weary traveller. Finding a seat is a bit like stumbling upon one of Willy Wonka's golden tickets: unlikely and sweet altogether. One's only hope of getting this rare pleasure is to wait for another flight's departure call at which point, those passengers for the said flight rise like a single body and rush to the gate where two airport employees muster every last bit of their courage before facing the angry mob eager to choose a seat aboard the aircraft. So, shall it be window or aisle?

In a couple hours, it will be my turn to rush & run to my seat. I'll let you turn the leaves of this blog and perhaps turn to where it all began, in sweet Lutèce...
And if you fancy a view, check out the rooftops in part II of the Paris getaway.

It all started with the usual Ryanair treatment: a delay due to the plane bound for Nantes not being there. Not being there I hear? Well where on Earth had it gone? Not to worry Mr. O'Leary was on the case and soon found out some naughty leprechauns had forced ATCs (Air Traffic Controllers for those non-planecabulary-aware) into a strike thus delaying the Dublin-Stansted flight and therefore the Nantes flight (as it was meant to carry us, wee passengers bound for what Ryanair dares call Britanny). As to whether Nantes is part of Britanny or not, we shall let other people deal with it.
Once we did manage to get airbound (after I recharged my laptop in a stealth electric plug at Stansted; some Italian 50-some doofus willingly kicked my charger around to then say scusa scusa... And la tua mamma, fa la pizza? Why did he have to hover round me in the first place?), we were some two hours late. As a result, whilst we'd planned to visit our folks down in Cholet - dear ol' timers - my sister and I drove back to her place where I met with the giggly monster!

It's nearly 7PM here in Ipswich - June 16th 2008. I'm still working on a paper for ECOWS 2008 - a conference on web services.
Thanks to Youtube, entertainment is blaring straight from my 3 1/2 jack to my ears. Suddenly pops up a Cranberries classic which brings back fond memories of my Cranberries period. I remember listening to Wake Up and Smell the Coffee when on the plane from Tours's minuscule airport to Essex's Stansted airport (1). It was back in 2004 and I was off to Ipswich for my second placement. Little did I know I would still be there some four years later. Whatever happened to my craving for travels and exotic places? Is that what they call senile rooting? The inability to move about till you receive brochures on senior travel to some remote middle east location for two including full board, wine, and a dedicated service should you need a pacemaker or a walker?

For your entertainment without further adue:

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(1) If you ever need to fly from Stansted and are bored in the long and winding security queue, spark off a discussion with your fellow passengers as to whether Stansted is part of Essex or Cambridgeshire or perhaps Hertfordshire. That is bound to get heated discussions about.