Sunday, September 17, 2006

Still on our way...

We arrived in London around 7:45 after circling for quite a while. Both Josh and I were staring at our watches in horror as our connecting flight was set to leave at 9:25 and all the paperwork said that we needed at least 75 minutes to go from Terminal 4 to 1.

After walking for a while, we finally got to the bus that links the terminals and encountered the British national sport; queuing ! We had to queue to get on the bus, queue to use the escalator, and then queue to get through security, and finally queue to go through customs.

As I mentioned, we actually had to queue to get on the escalator! One particular airport employee's job was actually to make sure that people queued properly to get on the escalator. He was oh so good at his job that he didn't even have any set requirements for who gets on the escalator. There were two lines, and most *normal* people would let the people on their right go up and then the people on the left and so on...not him! He seemed to have no rhyme or reason as to who got on the escalator. I got out of line, practically tapped him on the shoulder, and said that we had to get on a plane and didn't have time for his little ritual. Well, that was the wrong thing to do. He wouldn't let our line move for another 10 minutes because apparently he didn't like that I was telling him how to do his job. ARGH!

After all that, we arrived at our gate with 10 minutes to spare! OY! That flight was uneventful, thankfully. Upon arriving in Glasgow we went to collect our luggage.

In an effort to prove that the Scots invented standard time, mechanized rubber, etc., they all perfected the overpaid, underworked, smartass airport worker! Proof of this, was telling us that Toronto was not in Europe and we were waiting for our bags at the wrong carousel. For some reason, bags coming off the same flight are separated into EU and non-EU cities of origin. Had they simply off-loaded the bags from one flight onto one carousel, fired the smartasses, we would have been out of there 20 minutes sooner! ARGH!!

As if that weren't enough, we got to the taxi stand, and as luck would have it, we found the only taxi driver in all of Glasgow who was dumber than wood! He didn't know where we were going. He had to ask a fellow taxi driver for directions and then in a final fit of obliviousness he called the owner of the B&B for directions. He then proceeded to argue with her about where she lives. Guess who won that argument?

We got to the B&B (finally) and were greeted at the door by a kindly older lady and her Yorkie. The scene looked right out of a Scottish calendar. She showed us to our room, we opened the door and found two single beds. The look of disappointment on Josh's face was priceless.

We unpacked, took a much needed nap and woke up in time for dinner. Josh's uncle took us (another of Josh's aunt and uncle, a friend of his, Josh and I) out for dinner for authentic Scottish fare; Italian.

Everyone was talking about how large the portions are, so Josh and I settled on getting half portions of pasta with a starter salad. Seems simple enough, right?While everyone else also got half portions of pasta, that was treated AS their starter.

The portions were so utterly large that I couldn't even finish half of my pasta. Take a moment and imagine a full plate of pasta then washing it down with a chicken breast smothered in a sauce with rice and veggies. The sight of them eating all that was a bit hard to take. Personally, I'd be afraid to see what the 'full portion' looked like...

When my Caesar salad arrived, Josh's uncle's friend took a look at the plate and asked, "What's that?" I told her it was a Caesar salad and she replied, "It must be a Canadian thing." I felt like turning to her and saying, "Umm, don't they have salad on your planet, lady?" but I demurely smiled.

After dinner we said our goodbyes and called it a night.

1 comment:

4D said...

Funny arrival! Looking forward to hearing more!

Keep smilin!