Nov 06
Tuesday Oct 27
After a few days packing, in which I managed to make myself panic about how little was panicking, I’m ready to head back to Abu Dhabi. My bag holds a frighteningly small volume of “hostile” equipment. A single water canteen and a little torch are my only nods to March’s Desert Challenge. I have no sleeping bag or roll-mat, no rehydration salts, no huge bag of OTC medications. My enormous desert boots are still in the wardrobe. I’ve even ironed some of the clothes I’m taking with me.
My rucksack has an enormous binderin it, courtesy of the Digitals in which I have printouts of every flight, insurance document and briefing that has come hurtling out of my email at me over the past few weeks. That’s not to mention the four-hole punch I’ve stolen, there to feed the near-ejaculatory pleasure I get from being the only person in a crowd facing a common problem to have predicted the same and brought a solution.
Park my car, take a picture of it in locus so I can find the chuffing thing again in a week’s time and then a short flight with BMI down to Heathrow which is pleasant, with big comfy seats and friendly staff. The toilet is clean, I get an aisle seat in an emergency exit row and they ignore me when I plug my headphones in for landing. Nothing could be nicer.
EasyHotel were quite clear on their website that “the hotel you have booked does not have any dining facilities” and I remind myself en-route that I’d be wise finding a supermarket on the way there to buy myself a picnic tea.
Sadly, am ridiculously nervous about navigating London and Heathrow, country boy that I am. This is the Big City of Big Cities. As far as I’m concerned, I will become irretriveably lost as soon as I consider the place’s existence. Must broaden horizons, as friends think London is fantastic. I dunno, I’d sooner be eating mystery meat shawarma on the streets of the UAE, thanks. At least I know how things work over there.
Crippled by fear of Terminal Four, I pour myself and my bags into a taxi, give the cabbie the postcode of my hotel and watch with eyes like saucers as the meter spins faster than a fruit machine. Honestly, mate, all you’re doing is following a TomTom, I don’t see why your hourly rate should approach a hundred quid. Taxi ride costs me £23. Fuck this, next time I’ll buy a bike.
Through journey, the taxi driver, a Pakistani national, tells me that at the next election he intends to join and vote for the BNP. I am instantly thrilled with middle class joy and begin to discuss the opportunities for non-racists to join the party and subvert it from the inside. Turns out this isn’t his plan. He wants to join the BNP because he doesn’t like Somali people and wants “Someone to send them back.”
Face. Hand.
EasyHotel is spartan, but fine, in an incarceratory sort of way. Everything is moulded plastic and/or bolted to the wall. TV costs £5 for the night and WiFi the same for an hour. Feel like I could get a job in the mail room, or mopping the block corridor in exchange for extra privileges. Realise that not only have I forgotten to buy clever picnic tea, but with extortionate taxi ride, my last handful of sterling totals £2.10. Ask at reception where nearest cashpoint is, or supermarket?
“Twenty minutes down the road, mate. They shut at eleven, though.”
I check my watch.
It’s 22:50.
Cunt.
Dinner is a KitKat and a packet of Monster Munch from a vending machine. It’s only when I lie down to sleep that I realise the room has no window. Six hours of claustrophobia-fuelled terrorised sleep later and I’m up for my flight.
And you thought this was going to be exciting….
November 6th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Have you not heard of sandwiches Kal?
You could have made some and taken them with you.
A paramedic should be prepared for any eventuality. #:p
November 6th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Welcome home…welcome…come on in..and close the door (you’re too young to remember that song but welcome home)looking forward to further installments ps am terrified of London too..2 mins after getting off train at KX I abducted a biro-headed policeman and must of looked so horrified and bumkinish that he escorted me and dd across to St Pancras and through all the barriers straight to the platform for Brighton…result I say!
November 6th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
OMG - London??
Scarey.
I’ve never been to New York, but I am petrified of it. Too many people all trying to breathe the same air…
Yes, I live NEAR Chicago… So?
November 6th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
I don’t really mind London, provided no-one tries to make me go down one of those huuuuuge, scary escalators in the Tube stations. I don’t like escalators at the best of times, but those ones are horrific.
*retreats into corner, to rock away scary memories*
November 6th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
omg….could you of gotten a closer hotel to the airport? I think I would have rather slept on the airport floor!!!!
November 6th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
gak..tube escalator memories..feel ill..find diazepam!
November 6th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
londons a nice place…relly it is! and i dont believe her when she says the nearest cash point is 20 mins away, your never more than a 5-10 walk away from anything in london
November 7th, 2009 at 2:07 am
I LOVE London, but only since my sister has lived down there.
Now, I just know that getting lost is sometimes more fun than anything else!
November 7th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Oooh pleeease.. we aren’t that bad down here!!
November 7th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
You realise of course that even if Easyhotel was cheap you would have been better staying at whichever airport you got into OR whichever you were flying out of (even if they weren’t the same) and NOT doing the transfer via EH. That way - less of London - which I do agree is a GOOD THING. Nothing against you people ergot, just navigation is a nightmare when you don’t live there. Experience does help and I am getting used to it but I know where Kal is coming from!!!!!
November 7th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
You should have announced loudly “I’m off to provide medical expertise at the Emirates Grand Prix, doncha know”. I’m sure some lovable Londoner would have fed and watered you for a chance of some reflected glory . . . or rolled you for the stash you undoubtedly had in your rucksack!
November 7th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
…a Pakistani national, tells me that at the next election he intends to join and vote for the BNP.
My Mum also curses all the “foreigners” that live in her neighbourhood and is utterly non-plussed when I point out she wasn’t born in the country either. Is it all a game of kicking the latest comer?
November 7th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Kal, why didn’t you tell us you were coming to London ?! Your London-resident readers (I live here, but I’m not _from_ London, and am very keen to point out the difference !) would have sorted you out on the tube or train (none of this pricey taxi malarkey) and got you a nice packed lunch or similar.
November 8th, 2009 at 1:27 am
…and to think I thought my recent stay in an Etap hotel was bad! At least it had a window and a telly even if you did have to pay a tenner to hire a remote for the tv! Not sure how you’d have managed in it as the toilet was in a very small cupboard and when the door was closed it was at my knees. Given my vertically challenged state anyone approaching normal height or over would have been struggling.
Enjoy the trip,
Lucy
November 8th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Us humans are a funny lot Kai.
November 8th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Ditto Lizzie’s post. In-laws live 10 minutes from LHR and we are 10 minutes from LGW!!
(I too was scared of London - 5 years of commuting into the City cured that one)
November 9th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Aw, Kal, we’ll have to arrange to show you around London. It’s really not that bad, even the night buses.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
I felt more comfortable in New York than I do in London (except in the taxis, NY cabs seriously scary.