#33 Completed – Come to Stansted!

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Here’s my forfeit. Donner meat and chips with a healthy slop of burger sauce on a meshed metal seat of Upper Warlingham train station. To make things worse, I was completely sober.

Why was this my situation? Because I’d decided to print off instructions to solve a Rubik’s Cube for #25 just as I was about to leave for my holiday in an airport. Of course, I missed the train and with Sunday service, I was lucky that the next one was only 60 minutes away.

Annoyed with myself and hungry, I resolved to punish myself with the grubbiest dinner Whyteleafe town could offer on a Sunday evening. Kebab Masters delivered the goods (well, actually, I went to pick up the goods but you know what I’m saying).

The chips were chips but the meat, wow. It’s very special isn’t it. Curled shavings of grilled rubber. It just looked like the stuff you scrape out of the pan and have a 10 minute debate with your flatmates about the most sustainable way to dispose of it. Is it not supposed to be called ‘Doner’ rather than ‘Donner’? If you are what you eat then I’m sure you will soon end up post-mortally offering your organs with that stuff as a regular constituent of your diet.

As a train came to a halt on the opposing platform I felt the looks of judgement flush onto my cheeks. Deary me.

But after that, things picked up. Got to Victoria and onto a tube. Due to engineering work I had to take a bus across very unfamiliar parts of the big smoke. Eventually we made it to Tottenham Hale and shed the pounds for a ticket to my end destination, Stansted Airport.

As the automatic doors sleepily rolled open offering me entrance to the air-conditioned terminal I remembered how much this place reminds me of a giant wedding marquee. By the time of my late arrival, most areas were shutting down and only a couple of departures remained. An eery deserted atmosphere made me feel vaguely important. I didn’t fit the normal traffic, I had other reasons for being here.

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So, a holiday in an airport. On the face of it, the perfect vacation:

• Free accommodation
• Retail and café units open 24 hours
• An array of amusements to keep me entertained through the night, particularly good if you are a keen people watcher

Turns out it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. The highlights for me have been locating a particularly lively water fountain, working out what the disturbingly loud drilling noise was and watching the displays flicker about as they perform screen tests at 2am.

I spent a lot of time cruising from café to café. It was when I had finished my Orangeade at Ponti’s that I could hear intervals of excited shouting and squealing. Considering the sparse density of the population in the areas I had so far explored I was intrigued to learn more about this untouched airport tribe.

I found them, a school group at arrivals. And arrivals was where it was at; loads of people bustling, meeting, greeting and generally showing signs that they were alive.

I opted to drink an Americano. I don’t like coffee. In fact, that coffee is the 8^th coffee I have ever had. But I thought I’d go look intellectual near a very attractive female coffee drinker who was also looking intellectual. The coffee tasted horrible as normal but was made all that bit more bitter when her equally aesthetically pleasing male friend came through the arrivals gate.

Much later on my bed of choice came in the form of a corner wall of a Monsoon shop. I’d say it was pretty much ensuite as the toilets were directly opposite. It was great as it gave me a little ledge as a bed side table to leave my glasses on and an alarm clock if I had one. There was no need to consider an alarm clock because at 4am the place was absolutely buzzing and the dulcet tones of my phone alarm had been replaced with the abrupt commands of ‘all departures this way please’.

I then found myself in a Wetherspoons seeking breakfast. I looked at all the cooked breakfasts and I could not think of anything less appetising considering my hideous diet of last night. I opted for the apple juice but numerous people were going right in for pints of lager despite the hour of 5.30am. Curious at such behaviour I can only associate with music festivals, I listened in to hear where their accents were from. Irish, of course. The day after St Patrick’s Day and the celebrations are young.

And this is about as far as my holiday in an airport went. Later on I thought I’d try using the airport for another reason.

Girona, and Morocco anyone?

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.