Wednesday 19 October 2011

Ummm, that didn't go to plan...

Before I had left for my diving holiday and Oktoberfest I made sure that I had a way to get from Luton airport to my accommodation for the night. I looked up the best way to get into town, and where the best hostel to stay at would be. EasyJet have a bus service called EasyBus, and the bus runs from the airport to Finchley Road, so I booked accomodation near the end of the line. The only problem is that somehow I had mixed up which airport I was landing in... I WASN'T arriving into Luton, I was arriving into Stansted, and I only realised this when I was waiting in line to get through passport control.

So now I was nowhere near where I wanted to be. I had to figure out how to get from Stansted to Finchley Road. It may have been alright if it wasn't after 11 at night... It also didn't help that it took forever to get through passport control. Over 1 hour, by far the longest I have EVER had to wait to get through. It was lucky there were a couple of Americans who had also come across from Oktoberfest that I could talk to. I ended up catching the train from the airport to Liverpool St Station, and the same guys were on the train, so I continued talking to them.

I had a quick look on my phone how to get from the train station to Finchley Road, but it was going flat, so I asked at a little 24hr 'caff' if I could charge my phone. I stayed there for a bit and thought about what I could do. There were no hostels close by, and no trains running at that time of that night. Bus was an option, but I put it in the 'too hard basket'. I'm not good with catching buses at the best of times. So I ended up staying the night in the caff, then I went across to Macca's (cos it was cold in the caff) until the tubes started running, and I could make my way to G & A's early in the morning. I then walked to their place, as I didn't really expect them to come pick me up from the train station at 8am in the morning (they aren't like my grandparents... or indeed like my dad - they stay up late, and sleep in in the mornings!)

Needless to say, after spending the night not sleeping I spent most of Monday sleeping, before I had to go back to work Tuesday afternoon. Not the best end to my holiday, but it was still an awesome one :)


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