Landed!

Wow! What a trip! Our sweet landlady, M, offered to drive me to Victoria coach station. It'll take 15 mins, she told me. Fair enough, it probably would have, if it wasn't for the fact that we got stuck in traffic a few blocks away from the station. After five minutes in the car, without having moved an inch, I decided to run for it instead. Unloaded my luggage, and started running, bags and all. Only had five mins. to spare... Three blocks later, M finally caught up with me. So luggage back in car, and no feet on the brake... Made it to the coach with no more than 2 seconds to spare!

Finally on the coach, I started to slowly relax. However, it appeared that the block in traffic was not only on the south side of Victoria station, but on all sides... It took us 45 mins. to get from Victoria to Westminster... (Now, be good and google that distance on a map!) I was still ok, because I knew I had booked a very early coach just to have that extra time at the airport, but people around me really seemed to panic. I should have known better myself...

Well, got to the airport, with 2 whole hours left. Perfect! Queued up to the checking in machine (Ryan Air's latest thing), only to discover that it wouldn't print my boarding pass. Weird! Queued up for assistance. Learnt that my last name (God forbid, there are people who have å, ä, ö or other strange characters in their names!) could not be printed by the machine. Queued up for the sales desk. Had my name changed on the ticked. Queued up for the checking in machine again (they couldn't check me in at the sales desk, oh no!). Queued up for the dropping off luggage (a thing that truly deserves a whole other blog entry, but let me tell you; it included anything you've ever seen on 'the Airport' or similar TV shows: crying, swearing, the lot). Queued up for the security check. Ran to gate. Made it with five minutes to spare...

And then panicked on the plane because I thought I was on the wrong flight (staff very foreign, everyone around me speaking Polish, and security announcement in French!). Couldn't be happier than when I finally landed on home grounds!

Tomorrow I'm off to meet Finnish friends in town, and then to my sister's for a lucia and glögg party. And ahead lies the longest holiday I've ever had...