Airport madness

My first post was about my experiences in an airport. When you think of an airport, you tend to observe people, notice their weird habits, and record crazy incidences. I could not help but remember a few hilarious incidents today. Obviously, I feature in most of them, but it's amusing to know there are some people out there who are equally cracked up in the head as I.

Incident 1- which is also co-incidently the most hilarious ever! Flying route: Spain to Portugal It was my first travel itself. I was sharing my room with a friend while in Spain and the flight to Portugal was schedule at about 8 in the morning. Keeping sufficient time at hand, it was decided that we get packed breakfast from the hotel, and leave for the airport at 4am. It was almost an hour's drive to the airport. Knowing my sleep pattern, I told my friend that I would rather stay up till 4 am than wake up that early. She wanted to watch the tele and assured me that she would get ready first and then wake me up in time. Clearly as it would seem, she slept off sometime through the night. And the next thing I know is, people are shaking me trying to wake me up. I opened my eyes, all lost. I sat on the bed trying to judge what was happening around me. My friends were frantically packing things lying around into my bag, I asked them to spare me a couple minutes to go freshen up and brush my teeth, to which they denied very much to my surprise. They literally picked me out of the bed, pulled my bag and dragged me out of the room. On boarding the bus, I realised it was 5am already, and I was told that people had been trying to get us girls to wake up for the past hour. People tried calling the room phone, but in vain. They finally had gotten into the room using a master key from the hotel desk. Thankfully, we still managed to reach the airport just in time to board and fly off. So, basically, I took an international flight in pyjamas, without even brushing my teeth, only to get a chance to change into something acceptable on landing into Portugal. Although, I brushed my teeth before I changed from my pyjamas in to jeans and a top. Sorted priorities. We all still laugh over that incident whenever it comes up. P.S. I have never overslept the night before a flight ever since.

Flying route: Venice to Naples I recently did a Euro Trip with my friends. It was self-funded and so a very budget trip. We flew Ryanair and EasyJet which go easy on the pocket and booked accommodation through a website that gave us the cheapest yet decent places with a 100% refund policy. In the bargain, we had limited luggage to carry on the flight. The prescribed allowance read 1 piece for maximum weight of 10kg. However, we being us, tried to sneak in extra cosmetics and toiletries in a handbag thinking we could convince them that we only got 1 piece and this is 'just a hand bag'. Ryanair actually even let us through with that. And so we thought EasyJet would as well. Just then while sitting in the lounge, waiting for the boarding call, we found out that EasyJet would not let us go in with 2 pieces. Boarding was in like 15 minutes, and we all had a panic attack. Somehow we managed to put in all our stuff from the hand bag in the main bag, but the hand bag itself would just not fit in. I was wearing almost 3 layers already just to make some space in the bag. My friend, D, was wearing almost 5 thick layers in a very warm country. He looked bloated twice his size and we couldn't stop laughing at him. We all had to literally sit on our bags to zip them close, and the fellow passengers were well entertained in the process. We looked funny AND stupid. P.S. We had to remain in those multiple layers till we checked into our hotel which was almost 2 and a half hours after we landed in Naples.

Incident 3- Proudly presenting people as crazy as I!! Flying route: Venice to Amsterdam, apparently So basically, this happened just before we figured that we'd have to stuff all our carry on's into a single piece luggage at Venice Marco Polo. S, D and I were waiting for our boarding to begin. Boarding was on for a flight to Amsterdam. About 15 minutes prior to the departure of that flight, a group of 4 boys, all wearing cargo shorts and tees, with a small backpack on their shoulders each, casually walk up to the gate, and display their boarding passes to the airline ground staff. But much to their surprise, they were denied entry. And the punch hit them in the face when the airline staff told them that their aircraft was already on the tarmac and the next aircraft was being parked at the gate. They apparently had not checked their last possible boarding time and were too late to walk up. In their defence, they were in the lounge for the past hour 'just hanging around'. The lady apologised to them explaining that there was nothing that she could do NOW and their only possible solution was to book themselves on the next flight, which was 24 hours later! 2 of the 4 boys, started laughing like maniacs right there. 1 was too dumbfounded at the unexpected turn of events, and the last was still trying to convince the staff to let them go board. All this drama unfolding right before me, I could not keep in my laughter any longer, and I joined in with the 2 boys. The other ground staff at the gate joined in with me as it was way too funny. Not long before the surrounding passengers joined in the laughter riot too.

I do not know what happened next, as I got into my own struggle to fit my belongings in ONE piece luggage. Hopefully they did manage to board the flight next day well in time! I got onto my flight for the same day thankfully!

I hope I have entertained you much for today. More to follow next time. Cheers!