I missed my flight to Graz. See, the train from Milton Keynes to Euston got slowed down and arrived 20 minutes late. I needed that 20 minutes because it turns out that at RyanAir, where they take all the very worst things about air travel and sell it to you for super cheap, all while saying “Whaddaya want for 10 euros!?” is really strict about boarding times. Or maybe Stanstead Airport is. At any rate, they’d closed the gate and even though I still had half an hour, they refused to let me through. They then charged me 40 pounds for the privilege of flying on overcrowded delayed flight to Salzburg that landed me in Austria a good 8 hours later than I’d planned on arriving. Add screaming child two rows back and shake well. Perfect.
The worst part about traveling is always, for me, the transit. Airports are unpleasant places, shopping malls with no exit. There’s so much waiting around and so little to see. I’ve often wondered why there are no movie theaters in airports, it seems like a no brainer, but maybe they’re worried about missed flights? I think you could get a beeper/buzzer with your ticket and in you go. There are not enough places for napping, and you can’t go outside. Bah. Airports. I hate them. Then, to make things worse you get on an airplane where there IS a movie but you can see it plus, you have no room to move. You’d think a person who loves to be far away places as much as I do would be at peace with the process, but no go.
Ah well. Such is the life of the jetsetter. Really, I shouldn’t complain. The 40 pounds they charged me to change my ticket is less than the cost of an overnight at an airport hotel. I blew the rest of my pounds on a sandwich, a cup of coffee, a paperback, and found a place to sprawl while reading away the afternoon. It’s remarkable that I could get another flight to Austria, just like that. I caught J. on the phone before he’d left to pick me up in Graz, so while I was a little cranky about squandering the afternoon in the RyanAir hub, it could have been much worse.
Bitching about transit aside, what a great weekend! What a pleasure to hang out with Mindy and enjoy her wicked sense of humor and her excellent cooking. How nice to see green, green grass with flowers coming through instead of the endless white snow. How easy it is to do things like buy shampoo when you’re in a country that shares your language. (Please don’t misinterpret this for meaning, “Dammit, why don’t these Austrians speak English, already!” I just mean that it can be tiring to work in a second language all the time.) It was really great to hang out with someone who understands the inscrutable little things that we notice as Americans living abroad. Why is the hot water so hot? Why is it so hard to get Ibuprofen in large bottles? What are Europeans not keeping in the refrigerator? What’s with the laundry, anyway? And any number of odd little questions that you wouldn’t notice if you don’t actually live abroad. Anyway, it was a great trip.
The pictures are here.
Apparently it poured rain while I was gone, so my timing could not have been better. It’s snowing again now, a beautiful fluffy snow that’s sitting on top of the two-three feet that the rain left behind. It’s not too cold (though colder than England, certainly) and there promises to be good skiing this week. J. stopped in around 9am with fresh pretzels for me. It’s actually good to be back in the snowglobe.