Liam wearing all his clothes after touching down to -9 in Paris. |
After a hectic 48 hours in which we finished work, sold the van, packed up our belongings and donated the contents of our flat to the local charity shop, we spent a sweaty and unusually humid night on the couch at Bruno's. At 4am we awoke to the headlights of our taxi shining through the window and bleary-eyed we waved goodbye to our home town of the last 7 months and headed to Perth airport.
The first flight was relatively short, about 6 hours, but with an arduous 12 hour layover in Kuala Lumpur before our next flight. After fuelling up on coffee at KLIA we decided to head into the city for the day. After a bumpy bus journey of almost two hours we were regretting this decision, and apart from some dazed wandering around we spent most of the time in cafes. Better than hanging around the airport, but only just. So, very tired and already a day and a half since we graced the presence of a bed or shower, we boarded our flight, homeward bound. Air Asia do a reasonable line in airline food despite being a budget airline, so we were well fed with tasty curry, but there was no TV in the back of the seat or free booze to take the edge off what is undoubtedly the worse mode of travel in terms of actually enjoying the journey. All that was left to do was sleep, and thankfully we did most of the way.
Our final leg home was fraught with probably the most drama and bad luck we had had in all of our travels! We had to vacate the apartment by 12, and we got to work cleaning the place up, although of course it being Belgium we had to do our bottle recycling and returning (that's not a dig at recycling by the way, I dig recycling!). The bottle bank was up the road and Mark heroically disposed of the remnants of 9 people drinking into the early hours. A returnable case of beer was also in our possession so rather than leave it for the cleaner I decided to take it upon myself to do the right thing and return it to the nearest off license. The flaw in this plan was that not many bottle shops are open on a Monday morning, so my quest for somewhere to get rid of the damn thing led me into the old town centre. By this point the taxi had arrived back at the apartment but I figured they would drive past and pick me up on the way, not taking into account the one-way streets of Bruges. Things were complicated by having only an Australian phone with me that had no credit, and so I couldn't send any texts or make or receive calls. It turned out phone boxes in Bruges didn't take coins so I was completely off the grid! After a while of hanging around the only option I had was to head to the train station myself and pray they would be there, rather than taking the taxi on a very expensive search and rescue mission around Bruges. Thankfully they were and an hour or so later we were reunited. We missed the train we had intended to catch but another one was due, and we were on our way to the airport on the last train that would get us there in time. Craig and Stiffy were nowhere to be seen, and eventually it transpired that they had been even further delayed than we had and ended up taking a taxi from Brussels to the airport to make up for lost time. They needn't have bothered, as no sooner had we gone through the point of no return at security our plane was announced to be delayed by 5 hours. So, stuck in what is arguably the world's crappiest airport, we tried to keep our spirits up and keep ourselves entertained, all the while watching countless other Ryanair flights arrive and depart. Charleroi is basically a Ryanair hub, and we speculated that one way they manage to achieve the highest rate of on-time departures of any European airline is that when there is a delay, rather than shuffling around flights so that maybe a few flights have a tolerable delay, they just leave the customers of one flight to rot. A measly 5 Euro token was eventually dispensed, which didn't even buy a portion of chips at the overpriced restaurant (probably the only time we have ever wished for the presence of a reasonably priced American fast food chain). No reason given for the delay, no actual staff anywhere to explain, just a robotic voice over the tannoy. I suppose it is the price you pay for spending pocket change on a flight, but that doesn't mean I can't moan about it! Months later we got another 5 Euro refund, so in the end the flight cost virtually nothing. 5 hours turned into 6, and eventually we boarded the flight and (finally) received an explanation of why we were delayed - the plane had been grounded in Manchester, so a standby crew and plane had to be flown out of Dublin. Thankfully it was only a short flight and in no time we were in Manchester, greeted by my parents. Bleary-eyed we reacquainted ourselves after the year away, and tried not to fall asleep in the car on the way home!
Despite thinking we'd got over the jetlag, the first week at home was spent recovering. Maybe a weekend of heavy drinking isn't the cure to two days in-transit and trying to shift one's body clock by eight hours. The week was a blur, but we had a lovely time catching up with our families. My parents even laid on a belated birthday dinner for me. We were very spoilt, the Parker's even treated us to a Christmas dinner!
Sophie and Ste's wedding was almost upon us, so we caught up with them in the Top Lock and Charlotte spent a day or two helping out with some last minute preparations. The day itself was fantastic, held in a lovely pub in Laneshaw Bridge near Colne. Charlotte, Sophie and Sophie's sister Lucy arrived the night before and enjoyed a spa treatment and dinner, before an early morning hike on the morning of the big day. The service was beautiful and it was so lovely to see two of the St Michael's gang getting hitched. Sophie's ludicrously talented family provided the music including an epic version of Elbow's 'One Day Like This' to conclude the service. The food was great, tasty homemade pie and chips, and the evening do was a raucous barn dance. There's nothing like a good old knees up to get people into things and provide lots of laughs! Lots of fun was had by all, and the beauty of it was that at the end of the night we could just crash out upstairs in our hotel room.
In Manchester we caught up with Adam and Suze, they took us to an awesome Thai restaurant and we hung out at the new Port Street Beer House. We also stayed with Laura and John and had a fun evening of Tricksters Scramble, and a scrumptious lunch and catchup with Jess and Emma. Back home we had a night out in Brinscall (there's a first time for everything!) at Mum and Dad's sea shanty singing session in the Oak Tree pub. Enjoyed getting into the maritime spirit and even learnt the real words to Rule Britannia. Good times.
At this point (early March) the original plan was to head back to Australia on flights we had booked months previously, however a change of heart not long before we left Fremantle meant our plans were in disarray. Thankfully we had managed to get a refund on the flights which gave us some time to contemplate our next step. Where will we go? Will the Paris trip originally planned with my parents still go ahead despite no longer catching a flight out of Paris? Will we visit France and Spain, visiting relatives and snowboarding at our leisure, on the assumption that we are due a lottery win? Will our planned trip to Groezrock and Belgium still be feasible? Find out in the next instalment. Stay tuned!
Gripping stuff bro :)
ReplyDeleteP.s. it was Manchester not Liverpool we landed in - just to be pernickety.
xxx
Plus Alex is my fiance - not fiancee, unless you know something I don't :P xxx
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