I am yet again an
au pair for the third time in three years. Au pairing is the story of
my life :P
Anyway now I am
heeere...in Palma, Mallorca in the middle of the Mediterranean
(literally) yet AGAIN. Kate my sister and I have a joke about
beaches: 'God opens door...sometimes onto beaches' which is very true
according to my life decisions.
Well to start off
with I am going to tell a funny story about the journey to Spain,
starting in Standsted Airport, London.
I got
into Standsted at about 4 oclock PM on Sunday the 23rd
of June, after having rushed away from Southampton as quick as
possible after my baptism (another story). I went to check in so I
could just get through to the nice calm duty free bit as soon as
possible and just waft through the perfumes and expensive alcohol(s)
section TRANQUILLEMENT whilst waiting to board. Well, that is what
usually happens when I fly with Jet2 or even EasyJet or any other
crappy European airline flights.
But with Ryan Air there is always room for more crap.
I had not weighed
my suitcase prior to arriving at the airport but the night before I
was in my bedroom at about 11pm packing away with Kate lying on my
bed looking on at my suitcase with some degree of scepticism.
'You're aware that
you might not be able to pack that with your weight limit, aren't
you?' she kept saying.
'Oh it'll be fine!'
I kept replying expertly!
'I've done these
trips regularly! I never go over the limit – in fact I'm usually
under by a few kilos!'
The truth is I can pack well; I know the dos and don'ts of what to bring when au pairing: No need for towels because people who can afford au pairs can afford spare towels, three pairs of sandals MAXIMUN and ONE pair of heels MAXIMUM, ONE maxi dress only, pack only three books: your foreign language book, your guilty pleasure beach trash in English and your bible (last but not least). Another rule I usually follow is that I don't bring toiletries like shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, shower cream (or what my family calls 'lotions and potions') because of two obvious reasons: they explode and they weigh a lot.
Yes, learn from
Ross.
I must have been
tired that evening (I had been doing a lot of packing in the previous
days) because I forewent the toiletries rule and packed not only my
enormous bottle of Head & Shoulders but also my Aussie
conditioner and several other bottles of things (BRANDED things!!!).
I don't know why. I should have just stuck with my rule.
Anyway, going back
to the queue at Stansted for check-in.
When I finally got
to the check in bit and the lady took my boarding pass etc and told
me to weigh the case I suddenly knew, just knew, with a sinking
feeling that it was going to be overweight. But I thought to myself
that I would just pack some extra clothes into the hand luggage case
at 10kgs (because it was half empty).
The hand-luggage
case weighed 9.5kgs. Ah.
The one for the
hold...'17.8kgs. That's three kilos over.'
The desk lady's
face was politely menacing – it said 'pay £60 or jog off now'.
So basically I did
jog off because I wasn't going to pay £60. She kept my boarding pass
though and just said 'you can come back to the front of the queue'
with a smile. Ah, how lovely, I thought.
I knew right there
that it was possible to get rid of three kilos quite easily because I
am a pro at wiggling out of these tight holes. So I walked briskly to
the loos, locked myself in a cubicle, unzipped both suitcases and
started putting clothes on.
Next, I decided
that the bottle of wine for the family would have to go. But no, I
did not drink it, although that might have produced some more
interesting anecdotes.
Then I decided that
the lotions and potions, which I had stupidly packed against my usual
rationale, would also have to go. It was difficult, particularly for
the Head & Shoulders, which was only half empty, was
apple-scented, oh-so-reliable AND branded (none of this Tescos Own
crap) but I let it go, along with everything including even a blusher
and an old lipgloss (and my only lipgloss).
It's hard to explain in an image how amazing and nice smelling these products are. Sometimes I just go into the bathroom and just smell my shampoo.
When I had tidied
up the contents of my suitcases, decanted throwable items away into a
plastic bag and stuffed them unceremoniously into the stall's bin,
buttoned my denim jacket up (mostly to mask the strange look of my
layers of clothing), I marched out of the loos confidently, ignoring
a few glances that were thrown my way.
I got back to the
check in queue and ignored more stares (irritated and bemused) as I
went under barriers to get to the front. There was a family at the
desk so I waited but was conscious of the girl behind me who looked
pissed off all of a sudden. I tried to smile at her.
'Is it okay if I go
next? Because the lady at the desk has my boarding pass.'
She
answered politely as possible but the pissed-offness on her face
could not have been more visible as she mumbled something along the
lines of 'can't you join the back of the queue because it is really
huge and other people have waited a long time'.
I was trying to be
polite but I was secretly thinking 'girl, please, I have already done
my queuing and now I don't even have a boarding pass' which I
communicated to her to some extent; whether or not she accepted it I
do not know.
Eventually I got my
suitcase checked again (a few more pissed off checking-inners later
who were breathing down my neck).
Next I got rid of
the wine (a security guard accepted it) and then I went to go through
security (or in my head, the X-ray bit). I was confident when I
walked through at first, knowing smugly that I had no liquids in any
shape or form (for they now had been binned) nor did I have anything
sharper than a pencil stowed away in my hand luggage so I threw it on
the conveyor belt and waltzed through the metal detectors.
Which then beeped
because I'd forgotten about all my various bits of jewellery as
usual. The lady came to scan me (let's be honest, feel me up) and
suddenly stopped in her tracks. Rather awkwardly, her hands were rght over my
boobs.
'How many layers
are you wearing?' she asked suspiciously, trying to feel in between
my cleavage, which was well padded over under five different dresses.
'Not that many,' I
answered a little too quickly.
She looked at me as
if I had just committed a bloody murder right in the middle of broad
daylight in the security section of Stansted airport.
'Come with me,' she
said coldly, and grabbed her metal detecting device as if it were a
truncheon. She turned to the male security guard who was shaking his
head at me despicably.
'I'm gonna take her
for a private screening, Imran,' she muttered in a low voice.
'What private
screening?' I nearly cried out, in desperation. My heart started to
beat very fast as I followed her through a staff only door. It led
out into the most crowded and
people-wearing-normal-amounts-of-clothing section of Duty Free.
So I held my head
up as high as I could, trying my very best to remain impassive to the
jaws-open, Mean Girls-like stares from shocked mothers, grandparents,
five-year-olds and LADS holiday boys as I trundled past, shoeless
(they had taken my shoes at security) my maxi dress trailing behind
me (because I rely on the shoes I was wearing for extra height), all
five layers on display now they had taken my jacket off, trying my
very best to fight the urge not to smile nervously and whisper at
passers-by -
'Really! This is
only a Laundry Day.'
I may have been
caught on a few iPhones (LADS holiday boys weeing themselves with
laughter) but by the time I got to the security booth for 'private
screenings' I was getting so worked up about what they might do to me
there that I hardly gave a damn.
'Right! So what
have we here?'
Another security
woman arrived and smiled ironically at me. I think by the end of the
day I was sick of all these menacing and ironic Airport Staff smiles.
'She's wearing
about five layers,' said the woman who had felt me up. She looked at
me grimly. 'And I can't do a normal check on her.'
'The truth is,' I
blurted out, like a small child desperately trying to explain her way
out of having stolen a packet of crisps to the manager of Tescos, 'I
had too many clothes in my suitcase and it was overweight and there
was no other solution other than to wear them or throw them out - '
'It's alright, this
frequently happens!' the new security woman said with that ironic
smile in place. Which told me that, no this did not happen frequently
and she was practically wetting herself with laughter on the inside,
just like the holiday LADS.
'I'll take them
off,' I said quickly, realising that if I didn't get out of the booth
sooner or later I would miss my flight.
It would have been
humiliating, stripping off all the mismatched layers in front of the
two women: one judgemental and the other amused by my misery, but by
this point the last thing I wanted was for them to take me to yet
another more serious section of the airport (holding cells, for
example) for being uncooperative.
So when I was down
to my vest and skirt which I had arrived to the airport in, the
judgemental woman felt me up again, a little more sternly this time,
but without complaint.
'Okay all done!'
the smiling woman chirped at me. She grinned more widely. 'You can
put your layers back on now.' I could read her mind. If ONLY I had my
iPhone...
I finally got back
to the X-ray bit (ignoring the Duty Free LADS, grannies, mothers and
five-year olds) put on my denim jacket and made my way through plus
my suitcase and minus my dignity.
At that point I had
to make an essential dash into Boots for a European adaptor and a
large bottle of water. I sat down on a lounge sofa as I sipped it, in
a half-dazed coma, before I came to my senses and checked the screens
for boarding flights.
'18:00 Palma
Mallorca BOARDING AT GATE 53' it read and I checked my watch. 17:25.
It was time to go.
At first I walked
leisurely, wheeling my suitcase on all four wheels calmly, like a
Monday evening shopper in Tescos, until I came to realise that gates
42, 43, 44 and all the way up to 47 were passing me by but gates
51-59 were practically in another terminal.
I refused to run
(remember I was wearing five dresses, two tops and a skirt and was
already beginning to sweat) but I walked briskly, trying to remain as
unobtrusive as possible as five holiday LADS dashed past me at top
speed on the escalators (possibly the same ones who had photos of my
wardrobe misfortune on their iPhones).
I arrived at the
gate and joined the horrendous queue. It was 17:44. This was the
latest I had ever boarded a plane and nobody here even knew how to
queue. Possibly one of the only redeeming factors of British
behaviour is that in airports, at supermarkets, train stations,
Tubes, etcetera, people know how to queue in an organised and
systematic way.
In this queue, there was chaos. People were sneaking under barriers, walking straight past passengers to get to the desk, pushing and shoving and in general it resembled an enormous rally of people, rather than calm and collected passengers waiting their turn in line.
Eventually I got on
the plane at about 17:54, found an empty window seat at 17:55,
buckled myself in with my suitcase stowed overhead and my magazine in
my lap at 17:57 and at 17:59, the wheels began to move shakily down
the runway.
Evening is my
favourite time to fly because the sun setting generally makes an nice
atmosphere in the sky and it is a less anti-social hour than the
crack of dawn which is admittedly another nice atmosphere in the sky.
However at this point I was completely and utterly depleted of all
energy. My head was pounding with a terrible headache, I sweated
grimly beneath the layers of my own disorganised packing methods and
the seats had so little leg room (or breathing room) that I could
move one inch either side but not in any other direction or I would
annoy someone.
I watched the
runway disappear beneath us from my window (Ha – the only thing I
could gloat about at this stage) and then settled into my seat in
despair at the prospect of the next couple of hours in discomfort. I
had to use the toilet, but there was no foreseeable way to do this as
the seat belt sign had not gone off yet and wouldn't do for another
20 minutes and when it finally did go off, the various trolleys that
go up and down the Ryan Air, Jet2 and Easy Jet aisles did not permit
me to do so.
When the trolley
passed me by though, I caught a whiff of something that I had
completely forgotten about all day in the midst of my packing,
travelling and re-packing.
'Coffee!' I
shouted, and the trolley man looked at me in alarm. I lowered my
voice and ordered a
black coffee and a
panini.
Even though
altogether it cost me a pricey 8 euros and fifty cents, it was hardly
to my surprise that the moment I had finished the coffee and panini,
my headache had gone away. If my housemates had been around to
witness, they would have shaken their heads disparagingly and called
me a caffeine addict.
We landed, chaos
happened in the overhead cabins, chaos and heat struck when I walked
into the airport, but at this point I didn't care about anything
except finding a bathroom ASAP.
There were the
familiar, slightly sexist stick-men signs of a stick man and a
triangular loined friend, but there were four different languages
underneath them; two of which I recognised, two which I didn't.
I took a guess that
the first unfamiliar one was German and the second was possibly
Catalan, but I understood 'Lavabos' well enough and dashed into a
cubicle.
When I had sorted
myself out (removing five layers) I exited the loos, marched through
to Baggage Control wearing ONE DRESS, feeling almost suave.
Perhaps not that suave.
There is more to
come about what happened next, were the Spanish family there, how are
the children, what is there home like, is Mallorca sunny enough for
my taste? Because I have been here a few days now but honestly I have
EXHAUSTED myself recounting that particular airport episode but trust
me it was worth it because it was quite unforgettable.
