No sooner had I arrived home then it was time to, I would
like to write, say goodbye but as everyone is once again in bed, it was time to
sneak back out with only the dog to watch me go. As you can imagine setting out just as it is
getting light means there was very little traffic and my journey passed off
with little incident. The incidents seem
to occur as soon as I was out of my car and getting onto the bus at the car
park to get to the terminal and my love of Stanstead returned.
I am not a snob and would like to point that out as my next
comments are going to make me sound like one.
I like to think I am a down to earth type of person who has respect for
everyone and likes to have a bit of decency in return. So Stanstead isn’t really the place for
me. Firstly the bus was quite full as I
got on board and someone was standing a little close to the door sensor which
meant the door wouldn’t close. At this
point I would think the driver would make a polite but firm announcement and
not yell down the bus to get out of the way of the door or nobody was going
anywhere. Still it had the desired
effect and everyone moved in a bit and pretty quickly too.
Then as we arrived at the terminal and I walked through the
door the charms of Ryanair greeted us all.
The queues were quite epic and you could here some member of staff herding
people around the barriers, a blind person would have thought a herd of cattle
was being led through the terminal the way she yelled at people and got more
annoyed the more she had to repeat herself.
I am pleased to say that my flight today is with Easyjet
although I’m not sure the staff will be much different.
At this point I am going to digress back to yesterday and
something I witnessed on my flight back from Frankfurt. During the safety briefing before the flight
(it was a Lufthansa flight), they give the usual announcements like, keep belts
fastened when sat down, phones off. non smoking flight etc etc. But they also said that electronic cigarettes
were not allowed to be used on the flight which reminded me that on my last
Ryanair flight one of the things there were selling was electronic cigarettes
and made the point that these could be uses.
I now wonder if this is just a selling technique and by allowing people to
use them means they may sell a few more or is this me just been cynical.
A mistake made when booking the flight was that in my haste
to get it sorted I made a snap decision and not opt to put a bag in the hold of
the aircraft as it saved quite a bit of money and I know work pays but I do
still believe you should be as frugal as you can when using works money and
also as it is coming from my budget. Now
having to get all my stuff for three days into the smallest suitcase in the
world is proving quite a challenge and worried that before I get back the suitcase
will burst open and I will end up with dirty underwear exploding across the
floor. At this point I will say that I
am expecting the suitcase to burst open on the way back and I have not taken
dirty laundry on my trip with me.
On the plus side from the airport i had a coffee at
crepeaffair and it was really nice.
As the flight took off I was hoping for nice weather in
Avilies and a nice place where maybe I could bring my wife at some stage in the
future (yes dear I mean you, assuming that you will actually read this far into
my blog).
I arrived and I was right it was warm, very warm. The passage through customs was pretty good,
the first few people through seem to get the third degree but as I was about
half way through he had lost interest and barely looked at my passport and didn’t
look at me at all. I said nothing and
sailed on into the country.
The taxi journey was about 15 minutes and for 25 euros I was
dropped at the entrance to the Palace de Ferrara which is a very nice hotel and
apparently, and I say apparently as people have told me crap before, this is an
old palace and from the layout you could believe it. The building encompasses an old courtyard and
with the window open and the heat bursting in it has been a very productive
afternoon of meetings.
The plan for tonight was to wait for my UK colleague to show
and then have a quick walk around to see what was happening but as I had run
out of deodorant I had a quick walk to find a supermarket and the bit that I
have seen so far does look very nice. I
will try to get more photo’s tomorrow but for tonight below is what I have
found so far.
The best laid plans and all that meant that he did not arrive
until almost 22:00 so about 20:30 I decided to have a walk and ventured in the
opposite direction of the river, I thought I would leave that for tomorrow
night in case the presentation does not go down well. The walk started through a very strange
little street with shops on both sides, most seem to be ice cream shops but the
road surface was the main attraction it was a kind of mosaic pattern all the
way along. Then after about 10 minutes I
turned into the park and walked through to the other side which happened to be
the town centre. Another 30 minutes and
I was back in the plaza near the hotel so all in all it was a really pleasant
walk. It surprised me how busy
everywhere was, the small streets, the park and the plaza until 22:00 when
suddenly everything closed and people seemed to just disappear. I waited outside until my UK colleague
appeared and we had another walk toward the town centre but stopped when he
decided he wanted something to eat and for the next 30 minutes I watched him
eat.
Then it was back to the hotel for a quick catch up on emails
and now with the time almost midnight it is bed time, so
Night All
The picture above shows the view from the hotel into the plaza and the town hall across which the clock bell strikes every hour
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