Pinch me, I must be dreaming

nicholas on 2007-02-24T18:36:49

I've just got back from the German Perl Workshop, which was great fun. Now I have to work out how to get to Nuremburg for next year's.

The trip back was mostly OK, although it was rather annoying to arrive at Munich airport only to discover that the first two toilets I found were simultaneously closed for cleaning - good planning there.

The priority boarding seems to be a con on a con. At Munich, Easyjet uses a bus between the terminal and the plane. I was in boarding group "D", which should be last. Only we went on the same bus as "C". I saw a previous bus, and I'm not sure if it was the only other bus. If so, then everyone in "A" and "B" gets to board at the same time as the priority suckers. I have a suspicion that they may have all been mixed together, as they were only boarding on the rear stairs to the plane, which might mean that the passengers needing assistance were given the front stairs to themselves. However, when our bus got there we got to use both stairways, so as one of the first people up the front staircase I got a window seat in the second row, with a gap between me and the woman sitting in the aisle seat. [Which also meant I got to hear a comment made by the cabin crew - the reason that the announcement says not to walk under the wing after getting off was because some people do so and decide to touch the engine. The engine gets hot! People are stupid]

The upshot of that was that I was one of the first off the plane onto the tarmac, and the first into the terminal. Sadly my headstart was shortly wiped out because we all had to wait for the "transit" to the main terminal, where there were warnings that the new process in immigration meant that we might face some delays.

Oh-so-conveniently I seemed to end up next to the exit door of the transit, which meant that when we got to get off, I was first into immigration. 6 desks staffed. No-one queueing AT ANY. Have we really landed at Stansted? Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

For which we can rely on British Rail. Busses replace trains out of Stansted today. Construction work makes it hard to find the bus departure point, there are no announcements about what is going on, the busses are only to Bishop's Stortford (the next station) but take 20 minutes to get there (including lots of traffic jams) and everyone and their luggage has to cross to the far side of the station to get to the correct platform. But the train did depart on time.

Only to grind to a halt after about 5 minutes, in the middle of nowhere with no reason given. Yes, I had been dreaming, and now I'm definitely back home :-)