Monday 11 February 2008

7th

My only objective today was to catch my plane to london which left at six in the evening, so i spent the first half of the day on the beach where i had a swim and checking some emails on the free internet that was available in the supermarket of all places. I left for the airport at two giving myself an hour to get there and three hours before the plane left I figured i would have a lot of waiting to do but i didn't want to risk being lat. I'm very glad i left so early. I caught a sheroot to the town station no worries but boarded a train going in the opposite direction to the airport. A very kind army girl found directions for me and showed me the right platform. Finally when i was in the airport i got pulled up by a security lady who passed me onto a pretty intimidating man wearing a black suit. He questioned me very thoroughly for at least fifteen minutes about my trip asking where i stayed and demanding receipts from the places. I got a bit nervous under this sort of scrutiny, but i soon warmed to the task and told him as much as i could in the greatest detail and even offered to let him read this journal i have been keeping. He seemed pleased with my answers but he gave my passport to another suit clad man and took my bag into some 'questioning' rooms with me following dutifully at his heals. Despite my best efforts he wasn't keen on small talk. The room had many smaller areas cordoned off by curtains - i was told to place my bags on a bench and have a seat. At about this time i started to t a little nervous again but i thought 'what's the worst that can happen? You will be strip searched and you won't have a funny comment ready to say' Thankfully nothing so tragic happened. My black suited friend came and took me into the curtained room and told me to take off my shoes. "Now I'm going to body search you" he said "Well then i'll try not to smile too much". He kept a pretty stern face and started patting me all over and swiping me with his metal detector, things go a bit more exiting when he swiped the metal buttons on my fly and asked me to undo my pants, but apart from that it was all G-rated stuff. Back in the main room i was asked to open my bag and watched two lads go through my stuff very thoroughly, checking al the seems of my jackets and pants. My wallet and electronic stuff was taken into another room to be examined and taken apart. The battery from my phone had ben taken out and replaced as had the lens from my camera. I was really impressed at how thorough they were and i told this to he nice lady who walked me around to book my luggage in, she was a great deal friendlier than suit man. Finally i was through to the departure lounge with only a couple of minutes to spare and i got chatting to a four year old girl. According to her, her parents are in Australia or Switzerland and she and her brother are going to visit them soon. She was with her brother who had a pretty deformed head and a lady who she didn't refer to as her mum, but seemed quite conformable with. As i was wondering what her story was Denise walked by so i had a good chat with her. After the five hour flight back sitting next to a nice Jewish couple and their nineteen month old child i met up again with Denise and she offered to let me sleep on the floor in her room that night. I accepted this very gratefully as it sounded a hell of a lot better than the airport bench that i'd planned. We chatted merrily all the way to her place just up the road from Alisons and i made the most of hearing her fantastic Irish accent and had to suppress a laugh every time she said a word like 'think' as 'tink'. She grew up on a dairy farm in Ireland with nine brothers and sisters with fun names like Fergal and Dermot. Brilliant!

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