Girl, Meet World
Planes, (No) Trains and Automobiles
Having never flown in my entire life, I had absolutely no clue as to how big airports were and by all accounts of the word, Manchester Airport is a massive affair. There are escalators after stairs after check-in desks after duty-free shops and were I on my own, I have no doubt that I would have been completely lost. It’s all a little overwhelming and I’m currently still unsure if I will ever be able to navigate any form of airport without wondering exactly how they manage to fit so many fast-food restaurants into the one concourse. The off-white flooring stretches out as far as the eye can see. In fact, the entire airport seems to go on for miles and miles.
And of course it’s just our luck that we’re the ones running for our plane with literal moments to spare before the gate closes.
Andrea didn’t mean it, I know she didn’t. We all misread the tickets. Gate closes at 1:45 PM — that clearly means we only have to be checked in by 1:45 PM. There couldn’t be any possibility that we had to be at the gate at that very precise moment, a gate that seems a whole lifetime away from the security area. We absolutely are not the three passengers that everybody hates, running through the airport as fast as we can with our hand luggage trailing behind us. I’ve seen this on television programmes, where a small amount of passengers make the whole plane late. We’re going to be those people. Sorry, guys.
I can see the hostess attempting to stifle her laughter as we barrel up to the gate at what feels like a million miles an hour. I don’t think we’re exactly the sight she was expecting to see. I’ve got my jacket looped around one arm and the handle for my case in the other, and I can already feel my face heating up as I pull on the brakes. Word to the wise — always be early for your plane. Running the whole length of a terminal — especially one as large as Manchester — isn’t exactly the activity that makes the most fun morning, nor does it make us look any more attractive than we were already. I’m pretty sure I still have patches of dry shampoo visible in my hair, and there’s not a drop of makeup to be seen in sight. Coupling that with the sweat I can feel breaking, I don’t really rate my chances of bagging a fit Dutch bloke the second that I land.
Having never had to go through this experience before in my lifetime, I haven’t the first clue about boarding a plane — in fact, I don’t even really know what I’m supposed to hand the woman. My pockets contain a passport, a boarding pass, my student ID, my bank card and my mobile phone. Pretty sure she doesn’t need the last three, but who even knows at this rate. I don’t even know what the inside of a plane looks like, save for the scenes I’ve seen in movies. It’s probably a little embarrassing, being a little over 20 years old and not having stepped foot on a plane before. The other two had laughed when I had told them, which didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
Fumbling and stumbling, I manage to make my way through the gate — turns out all she actually needed was my passport and my boarding pass and not my mobile number, my bank details or my excuse for a student ID — and then I’m on my way down some weird tube, suspended in mid-air and leading me towards another, much larger flying tube.
Day 2, and the second failure of the trip has already been notched up. God only knows what’ll happen when I actually manage to get up in the air.
I jumped. I jumped at a bloody ping on the intercom.
Andrea and Rachael are absolutely ending themselves. I can see tears forming in Rachael’s eyes, she’s laughing that hard. They thing the entire thing is fucking hilarious, me being concerned about the noises on the plane. However, I’m on high alert — I mean, have you ever watched Air Craft Investigations? — and the fact that the intercom just made the loudest unexplained beep has sent me into panicked hysterics. I’m a mess, physically and emotionally. My little conspiracy theorist brain has thrown itself into overdrive. I’m not ready to be on a plane.
I mean, how do these things even fly? How does a huge tin can filled with hundreds of people manage to get off of the ground and fly through the air, over oceans and into different countries without just falling out of the sky? Physics would probably have been able to explain all of that to me, but I was never that good at physics so my entire body had gone into overdrive (pun emphatically intended) and had decided that eery little noise is the plane blowing up because hey, it’s a huge metal container filled with humans that just shouldn’t be able to take off and fly through the air.
We’re not even in the air yet, though, which is what seems to be sending the other two into hysterics of their own. Andrea, a few minutes earlier, had asked how I was going to react when the plane took off, considering I’m freaking out when we’re still very clearly on the ground. They think this is great, whereas I am currently plotting their demise. We’re all horrendously sleep deprived and we’re going one of two ways — we either find everything funny or everything irritating. I’m currently experiencing the latter. And with the other two giggling like fools and the plane due to take off in the next few seconds, it’s all too clear that I am shitting my pants.
A gentle rumble and then the engines are going. Oh God, the engines are going. We’re moving. The plane is reversing. We’re rolling backwards towards the runway. I am on a plane. Oh God. Now we’re on the runway. I’m going to vomit. I’m going to vomit all over the place. I’m going to vomit, and cry, and do all of the other stupid things that’ll probably get me thrown off of the flight for disrupting the other passengers. I’m not cut out for flying, I’m really not.
The others have noticed now, and I’m getting pity looks and hand squeezes directed my way. I’d rather they didn’t bother, because I’m currently attempting to use my fingers to demolish the armrests that I’m holding onto for dear life. Dead on the floor? More like dead at 30,000 feet. I’m going to die. We are going to crash and I’m going to die in the middle of whatever sea or ocean splits the UK from the rest of Europe with nothing but the stupid yellow life vest that the cabin crew are currently showing us how to use. Not helping, Ryanair.
The roaring is getting louder now, and I close my eyes because it’s about the only thing I can think of doing that doesn’t involve me crying violently on Rachael’s shoulder. I’m clearly not cut out for this travelling stuff. We’re going at what feels like a zillion miles an hour and I can feel the vibration of the engines throughout my entire body. Have we taken off yet? I don’t know. I’m sitting next to the window, but there’s no way in any conceivable hell that I’m opening my eyes to see if we’ve managed to get off of the ground yet. Instead, I’m focusing on actually breathing and not vomiting all over the person in front of me, because I’m pretty sure that’d put a damper on their mood.
And suddenly, I’m vertical and I don’t feel like I want to vomit anymore.
We survived! I’m alive and guess what: we made it to Central Europe!
Eindhoven, The Netherlands. I take a deep breath of air as we make our way away from the security checkpoints — which were a breeze to get through, thank you EU open border policy — and out of the baggage hall. We’re here, finally, and most importantly I am not on a plane. Despite the fact that I realised about 20 minutes into the flight that it isn’t as bad as I had first thought, I am still not a huge fan of flying. Give me solid ground under my feet any day.
I’m also not a huge fan of luggage in general. With the aforementioned Megabus fiasco still all-too-fresh in my mind, I am very mindful of the fact that I am currently carrying more than the standard fare in terms of stuff that I probably didn’t need to bring with me. My two huge cases are thankfully still with me, but they aren’t making life easy. I have one in one hand and one in the other. After I had finally calmed down from the plane journey, I had come up with the genius idea of putting my hand luggage case on top of one of my hold cases, which had resulted in us having to stop on every occasion that it fell off. There were a few fresh cuts and grazes on my hand — battle scars from my travels — but we had actually managed to make it out of the hall and into the passenger hall. Now comes the moment we've all been worrying about — meeting our first Dutch person, and having to spend the entire journey from Eindhoven to our new home in Tilburg making awkward small-talk.
As we scan the people in the area, entirely unsure of who we’re looking for, Andrea notices her — she’s standing with a small handwritten sign that says ‘Fontys’ with a little smiley face drawn underneath it. Cute. She’s a lovely-looking person, all smiles and beautiful short red curls and eyes that seem to smile almost as much as she is. But the simple fact remains in my mind — we have no idea who this person is. Every single stranger danger advert I’ve ever seen flashes in my mind, and I suddenly feel about as nervous as I did stepping foot on the plane.
I needn’t have worried, though. She runs over, introduces herself — Marlie, what a sweet name — and instantly takes my hand luggage case, to which I throw her a thankful smile. I’m instantly put at ease with her chattering — she’s probably better at speaking English than we are, judging by the way she natters away — and we start to move slowly towards the airport exit. She seems very much like me; she’s chatty and she seems to want to talk about anything and everything, which is something that I can seriously get behind. In fact, I’m so busy chattering away to her that I look right before crossing the road and I almost get myself knocked over by a bus.
Shit. I forgot they all drove on the wrong side of the road.
And of course it’s just our luck that we’re the ones running for our plane with literal moments to spare before the gate closes.
Andrea didn’t mean it, I know she didn’t. We all misread the tickets. Gate closes at 1:45 PM — that clearly means we only have to be checked in by 1:45 PM. There couldn’t be any possibility that we had to be at the gate at that very precise moment, a gate that seems a whole lifetime away from the security area. We absolutely are not the three passengers that everybody hates, running through the airport as fast as we can with our hand luggage trailing behind us. I’ve seen this on television programmes, where a small amount of passengers make the whole plane late. We’re going to be those people. Sorry, guys.
I can see the hostess attempting to stifle her laughter as we barrel up to the gate at what feels like a million miles an hour. I don’t think we’re exactly the sight she was expecting to see. I’ve got my jacket looped around one arm and the handle for my case in the other, and I can already feel my face heating up as I pull on the brakes. Word to the wise — always be early for your plane. Running the whole length of a terminal — especially one as large as Manchester — isn’t exactly the activity that makes the most fun morning, nor does it make us look any more attractive than we were already. I’m pretty sure I still have patches of dry shampoo visible in my hair, and there’s not a drop of makeup to be seen in sight. Coupling that with the sweat I can feel breaking, I don’t really rate my chances of bagging a fit Dutch bloke the second that I land.
Having never had to go through this experience before in my lifetime, I haven’t the first clue about boarding a plane — in fact, I don’t even really know what I’m supposed to hand the woman. My pockets contain a passport, a boarding pass, my student ID, my bank card and my mobile phone. Pretty sure she doesn’t need the last three, but who even knows at this rate. I don’t even know what the inside of a plane looks like, save for the scenes I’ve seen in movies. It’s probably a little embarrassing, being a little over 20 years old and not having stepped foot on a plane before. The other two had laughed when I had told them, which didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
Fumbling and stumbling, I manage to make my way through the gate — turns out all she actually needed was my passport and my boarding pass and not my mobile number, my bank details or my excuse for a student ID — and then I’m on my way down some weird tube, suspended in mid-air and leading me towards another, much larger flying tube.
Day 2, and the second failure of the trip has already been notched up. God only knows what’ll happen when I actually manage to get up in the air.
I jumped. I jumped at a bloody ping on the intercom.
Andrea and Rachael are absolutely ending themselves. I can see tears forming in Rachael’s eyes, she’s laughing that hard. They thing the entire thing is fucking hilarious, me being concerned about the noises on the plane. However, I’m on high alert — I mean, have you ever watched Air Craft Investigations? — and the fact that the intercom just made the loudest unexplained beep has sent me into panicked hysterics. I’m a mess, physically and emotionally. My little conspiracy theorist brain has thrown itself into overdrive. I’m not ready to be on a plane.
I mean, how do these things even fly? How does a huge tin can filled with hundreds of people manage to get off of the ground and fly through the air, over oceans and into different countries without just falling out of the sky? Physics would probably have been able to explain all of that to me, but I was never that good at physics so my entire body had gone into overdrive (pun emphatically intended) and had decided that eery little noise is the plane blowing up because hey, it’s a huge metal container filled with humans that just shouldn’t be able to take off and fly through the air.
We’re not even in the air yet, though, which is what seems to be sending the other two into hysterics of their own. Andrea, a few minutes earlier, had asked how I was going to react when the plane took off, considering I’m freaking out when we’re still very clearly on the ground. They think this is great, whereas I am currently plotting their demise. We’re all horrendously sleep deprived and we’re going one of two ways — we either find everything funny or everything irritating. I’m currently experiencing the latter. And with the other two giggling like fools and the plane due to take off in the next few seconds, it’s all too clear that I am shitting my pants.
A gentle rumble and then the engines are going. Oh God, the engines are going. We’re moving. The plane is reversing. We’re rolling backwards towards the runway. I am on a plane. Oh God. Now we’re on the runway. I’m going to vomit. I’m going to vomit all over the place. I’m going to vomit, and cry, and do all of the other stupid things that’ll probably get me thrown off of the flight for disrupting the other passengers. I’m not cut out for flying, I’m really not.
The others have noticed now, and I’m getting pity looks and hand squeezes directed my way. I’d rather they didn’t bother, because I’m currently attempting to use my fingers to demolish the armrests that I’m holding onto for dear life. Dead on the floor? More like dead at 30,000 feet. I’m going to die. We are going to crash and I’m going to die in the middle of whatever sea or ocean splits the UK from the rest of Europe with nothing but the stupid yellow life vest that the cabin crew are currently showing us how to use. Not helping, Ryanair.
The roaring is getting louder now, and I close my eyes because it’s about the only thing I can think of doing that doesn’t involve me crying violently on Rachael’s shoulder. I’m clearly not cut out for this travelling stuff. We’re going at what feels like a zillion miles an hour and I can feel the vibration of the engines throughout my entire body. Have we taken off yet? I don’t know. I’m sitting next to the window, but there’s no way in any conceivable hell that I’m opening my eyes to see if we’ve managed to get off of the ground yet. Instead, I’m focusing on actually breathing and not vomiting all over the person in front of me, because I’m pretty sure that’d put a damper on their mood.
And suddenly, I’m vertical and I don’t feel like I want to vomit anymore.
We survived! I’m alive and guess what: we made it to Central Europe!
Eindhoven, The Netherlands. I take a deep breath of air as we make our way away from the security checkpoints — which were a breeze to get through, thank you EU open border policy — and out of the baggage hall. We’re here, finally, and most importantly I am not on a plane. Despite the fact that I realised about 20 minutes into the flight that it isn’t as bad as I had first thought, I am still not a huge fan of flying. Give me solid ground under my feet any day.
I’m also not a huge fan of luggage in general. With the aforementioned Megabus fiasco still all-too-fresh in my mind, I am very mindful of the fact that I am currently carrying more than the standard fare in terms of stuff that I probably didn’t need to bring with me. My two huge cases are thankfully still with me, but they aren’t making life easy. I have one in one hand and one in the other. After I had finally calmed down from the plane journey, I had come up with the genius idea of putting my hand luggage case on top of one of my hold cases, which had resulted in us having to stop on every occasion that it fell off. There were a few fresh cuts and grazes on my hand — battle scars from my travels — but we had actually managed to make it out of the hall and into the passenger hall. Now comes the moment we've all been worrying about — meeting our first Dutch person, and having to spend the entire journey from Eindhoven to our new home in Tilburg making awkward small-talk.
As we scan the people in the area, entirely unsure of who we’re looking for, Andrea notices her — she’s standing with a small handwritten sign that says ‘Fontys’ with a little smiley face drawn underneath it. Cute. She’s a lovely-looking person, all smiles and beautiful short red curls and eyes that seem to smile almost as much as she is. But the simple fact remains in my mind — we have no idea who this person is. Every single stranger danger advert I’ve ever seen flashes in my mind, and I suddenly feel about as nervous as I did stepping foot on the plane.
I needn’t have worried, though. She runs over, introduces herself — Marlie, what a sweet name — and instantly takes my hand luggage case, to which I throw her a thankful smile. I’m instantly put at ease with her chattering — she’s probably better at speaking English than we are, judging by the way she natters away — and we start to move slowly towards the airport exit. She seems very much like me; she’s chatty and she seems to want to talk about anything and everything, which is something that I can seriously get behind. In fact, I’m so busy chattering away to her that I look right before crossing the road and I almost get myself knocked over by a bus.
Shit. I forgot they all drove on the wrong side of the road.