Sleepy Suffolk

It all started off Friday Oct 17^th. Or rather that following dawn. The omens had gathered on the obscure side of life to cast me one of those spells that leave you petrified and make you do the dumbest things.
In my case, it resulted in my missing my flight out to Rome - well partly at least. So much for the Papal city and the pizzas I was going to guzzle down over the weekend. And of course, a flight never seems to be alone: wham I missed the return leg of the journey as well. So much for the long night hours spent in Ciampino’s locally flavored airport (see a previous post on the topic).

Two flights down so far. It so happened that in addition to going to Naples that weekend I’d also planned to attend a conference in Sweden (Stockholm, the city built on top of 14 islands, where a good friend of mine - Andres - lives). But due to work I had to forfeit that trip. Way out, way back. Two flights gone kapploie. And since I thought at the time of booking that going to Stockholm was probably not going to quench my thirst for travel, I’d snucked a layover in Oslo into the schedule as I have another friend - Leyre - there. No Stockholm domino-implied no Oslo. Here goes another flight.

So by the time I reached Sunday Oct 26^th, I had let no less than 5 flights wither away. I wish I could claim tragically that the very paper on which my Ryanair e-ticket was printed had also waned but in this modern day and age, I’m afraid that piece of paper stayed pretty much as it was the day it came out piping hot of the Xerox monster.

And to top it all, to surpass this nonsensical flight missing (or no-show), there’s nowhere (now here) quite like home. Tomorrow I’m to go to Tunisia and because my flight out of City Airport is so early, I’m staying at a colleague’s house in Colchester. Quite naturally, come the time to travel, Pili - a Spanish friend - drives me to the station well in time to catch the 20:42 train. As a matter of fact I had so much time I confidently walked up to the ticket counter to buy my way onboard on this grand Nat’l Express service to Essex’s capital city (proud to be Britain’s first recorded town). As I take the ticket and my credit card back from the lady, I casually ask her whether the train will be departing from platform. And as I speak I point to the train currently parked there. The sales assistant confirms what I’ve always known after three years in Ipswich: platform 2 is it? London-bound it is then.

No sooner had I boarded the train with a good ten minutes to go before departure that I heard the ominous sound of a station manager’s whistle bidding farewell to a train. Not just any train. My train. By Jove! It all seemed clear enough I was onboard the wrong transport. Where was I off to? Surely not Norwich, that would be catastrophic. Please don’t let it be Lowestoft, God only knows when I could come back from deep Suffolk.
As it so happens, the train I had so surely boarded led me to Harwich International. To make matters more bittersweet, the train came within yards of an intermediary station which, had the train stopped there, would have reduced the strain on my wee heart sinking at the rate of today’s financial markets.
I had no other solution but to wait for the train to reach its destination, make a desperate dash for the Colchester-bound train, miss the latter by a handful of seconds, and eventually board the same train again to return to Ipswich much like a sheepish hunter walking back empty-handed from a fox hunt.
All in all I will have crossed platforms twice in Harwich, twice in Ipswich (as trains were shifted round) and once in Colchester. I shan’t count the steps I had to climb but surely there were more than Hitchcock’s 39.
As my train swept by Harwich’s harbor, I took in the scenery and snapped a pic of an idle ferry. With the train gliding along its way inland, the picture came out blurry…
   

A few months ago, my roommates and I decided to hop off to Oslo for the longest weekend in the year - the weekend of the 21st of June. We had a long and hard look at the map scouring countries and cities alike for the northermost location within easy reach of Stansted and its Ryanair tentacles. That’s how we ended up with Oslo - Oslo Torp to be more specific, some one hundred kilometers due South of the Norwegian capital.

At the time we booked our tickets, the only acquaintance we had over in Oslo was an English friend, Tom, who’d recently kicked the Suffolk dust off his boots to go settle in a no more clement weather but in a much cooler country. Unfortunately, since then, we’d heard very little of him to the extent that we started wondering whether some ugly troll had had the better of him lest it be a vile Viking scavenging his new home and slaughtering him mercilessly.
However Dame Chance was to be with us. Another friend of ours - a former resident of Ipswich too - was moving to Oslo but a month before our arrival. Leyre, a young pretty Spaniard from Madrid was therefore to become our official tour guide. One must add it was a role quite befitting her as she was going to Oslo to work at the Spanish TOurism Board Office.

And thus it all began - from a few clicks on a massive Irish low cost airline’s website to slamming doors shut on Amaia’s antique VW golf, ‘French-style’ (i.e. with the steering wheel on the left and a musty sense cheese had been consumed on this four-wheel contraption).
Friday June 20th 2008 - 3PM. Bull Rd somewhere in an eastern town longing for past football glories. Four personas: Amaia, Spanish, and the day’s driver; Rubén, affectionately called Mono, also Spanish; JuanLu still Spanish though a totally different strand - made in Madrid and proud of it; lastly myself, David, French every last square centimeter.

And so we drove off to Stansted Airport, Essex’s White Elephant. The ride was uneventful save for a sorry prank JuanLu and I shared and whose victim was none other than Amaia. Need I say Rubén slept through it all?

Once we made our way to the terminal after having tucked the car away in LTP (long term parking), Amaia felt it necessary to share some gruesome facts about air accidents and cabin depressurization and the effects thereof on one’s eyes and cheeks. Cheeky girl that one.
We got our revenge on her when - as we went through security - she got thoroughly search (and I would love to say probed) inside out for simply ‘forgetting’ some toothpaste and endless creams (all within the 100ml limits) in her backpack. I did the same to be quite honest. What’s the point if they don’t event notice half of the time? The man who checked both our bags sported an arm length tattoo of a pin up girl in very light lingerie. I wonder what might happen when the security guard flexes his muscles in different ways.

At last, airside Stansted, home to Duty Free, cheap alcohol, chart DVDs, bingo games, and a JD Wetherspoon. Being with three Spaniards, I had no choice but to head over to the Alcohol store which - because we were leaving the EU (Norway isn’t in the EU) - had some serious offers to brag about and tempt us with. Surely enough, a few quid later, having flashed our boarding cards to the sales clerk, we were well equipped to spend the weekend in what is known as one of the most expensive places on Earth when it comes to sipping & slurring such inflammable liquids as Whiskey and Rum.