234-235 France 2024

234 Edinburgh-Geneva (Easyjet): Was lying in bed with my book and a bacon roll, enjoying the rare luxury of a lunchtime flight, when I got a knock on the door at 8:30am. Turned out to be the plumber who was possibly coming on Tuesday, definitely Wednesday, to service the boiler. So I clearly wasn’t expecting him on Thursday. It then transpired that the boiler was humped and had to be disconnected pending replacement, so no hot water or heating in the meantime. It looked like I had picked the right time for a long weekend in France…

On arrival at EDI it seemed plenty of other people had obviously had the same idea. I thought I had avoided the bulk of the easter weekend traffic by travelling on the Thursday, but the terminal was mobbed with an annoying number of families. Equally annoying was the construction work going on at the retail space just after security, meaning the water fountain had disappeared. I headed to Boots to buy some water to fill my bottle (as it was the cheapest option), only to find it was closed. On closer inspection no, it wasn’t actually closed; the shutters were down with a tiny gap and large hastily-printed A4 signs saying ‘Cash only – sorry’. So it was next door to W.H. Smith, which was of course mentally busy due to the near-closure of Boots. Almost fifteen minutes queueing for an extortionately priced £2.89 bottle of Evian, just so I could have something to drink on my journey to…Evian. I then discovered a new water fountain had been installed next to Gate 11.

The flight to Geneva was pleasant as always, (it’s one route where I’ll always make sure I have a window seat), and I treated myself to a can of Rekorderlig en route. The border was pleasantly quiet on arrival, and I was quickly out and headed to the train station to be met by someone in a rabbit costume accompanied by SBB staff handing out little packets of complimentary Lindt chocolate eggs. Not sure what the reason was but I made a few passes to collect as many as possible, (who wouldn’t?). There was no need though, as there were plenty more on arrival at Gare Cornavin.

One thing that had confused me on my previous visit to the Haute-Savoie last spring was the fact that I didn’t seem to be able to book the Leman Express trains directly from Geneva, which had meant making my way into the city, taking the tram across the border to Annemasse and catching the train from there. Turned out that the hack for this was booking the train through the SBB app rather than the SNCF one, (no, I don’t know why you book a French train through Swiss railways either), meaning I could get on the train at Geneva this time. And a good job I did too, as it was standing room only by the time it reached Annemasse.

235 Geneva-Edinburgh (Easyjet): After a brief wander around the city in the sunshine, I arrived at GVA to find it as busy, chaotic and expensive as ever. I knew there was no water fountain here, so I had no choice but to pay for some water, this time splashing out 3.90CHF for more Evian, (no irony there). And then found that the airport had finally gotten around to installing a water fountain.

Once onboard my return flight I discovered I’d had the ill-luck to be seated in the midst of a group of twenty-something male twats who had obviously been off to a skiiing holiday in the Alps, (possibly paid for by their parents). One overheard comment about how excited they were about the new Greggs on Byars Road was enough for me to adequately judge them, and I kept my headphones on all the way home. EDI was pleasantly quiet on arrival with no queue at the border. However, my passport did not want to be scanned and I had to go to the desk. But since it’s almost reached the end of it’s ten years I wouldn’t be surprised if the chip was playing up; it only has to last three or four more trips anyway. No big delay though, and I was soon on my way home to see if my new boiler had been installed during my absence as promised.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

226-227 Sweden 2024

226 Edinburgh-Gothenburg (Ryanair): A very quiet EDI today, as you might well expect from a Saturday afternoon in mid-January. Hardly anyone downstairs at check-in, and security took under two minutes to negotiate. In fact I don’t think I’d ever seen the airport so quiet, I could even have gotten a table in Wetherspoon’s if I so desired. However, mindful of the fact I was still waiting on the results of my annual diabetes check-up, I opted for a nice salad and a bottle of water from Boots instead.

This weekend’s flights had cost the princely sum of £48 return, and it would have been even less if I hadn’t paid for my preferred seats. There is of course a reason why budget airlines sell seats so cheap; it’s not out of the kindness of their hearts, but because they haven’t sold enough seats for the flight and risk running it at a loss. So I wasn’t expecting a particularly busy service today, which was borne out by the number of people at the gate for departure. I briefly considered a rough headcount to get an idea of the numbers and then had the question answered in unexpected detail by a frustrated ground agent; ‘C’mon folks, the bus holds 100 passengers and there’s only 81 of you today, can you please move up a bit?’ Well that answered that. Incidentally, it must be so annoying to pay for priority boarding just to be stuck on the same bus as everyone else, what a waste of money.

Once onboard we had the usual pre-departure shuffle you get on half-empty flights, when the miserable cunts who are too mean or feckless to pay in order to sit beside their travelling companions get up and start swapping seats. The flight was fairly short, but I treated myself to a cider as it was the first trip of the year. The only incident of concern was when we were told there was turbulence ahead and the seat-bealt sign went on, at which point the pilots left the cockpit, (one after another), to use the bathroom. Were they shitting themselves at the prospect of some turbulence? Why were they allowed to use the loo during turbulence when the rest of us had to strap ourselves in? What if one of them got sent flying by an unexpected wave whilst wandering the cabin and were incapacitated? Since there was barely a tremble of the wings during the next fifteen minutes, I suspect the turbulence was simply a ruse so they could get to use the bathroom uninterrupted…

With a direct flight for once, this meant I would get a Swedish stamp in my passport instead of yet another one from the Dutch immigration at Schipol. As I expected, immigration at GOT was a fairly small arrangement, a mere two desks with not much of a queue. And as with my last arrival at GOT, the airport bus was waiting outside and ready to depart within a minute or so of my boarding. A massively pleasant contrast to the usual headfuck landing at EDI always seems to be.

227 Gothenburg-Edinburgh (Ryanair): Was at the terminal a little earlier than was really neccessary, but fuck me it was bloody cold in Gothenburg and I was keen to just sit down somewhere warm. And it gave me plenty of time to buy more Finnish chocolate, which is always the highlight of any visit to Sweden.

Quite a few familiar faces at the airport today, including the bunch of weegie students who I had spotted in my local last night, as well as the two girls who had been sitting opposite me on the outbound flight. I also had the same border officer, who could not for the life of her find the entry stamp that she herself had put in my passport less than 48 hours ago. I was just about to helpfully direct her to page 15 to find it when she finally managed to track it down, buried deep amongst a forest of Schipol entry and exit stamps. The flight was routine, with the half-empty aircraft prompting another game of musical chairs before departure. And once again the pilots announced some upcoming turbulence and then promptly went to the toilet; there’s something going on there…

222-225 Norway 2023

222 Edinburgh-Amsterdam (KLM): Slightly melancholy feels on the way to EDI this morning as this was the last trip of the year. although I would finally be ticking Norway off the list. The weather was bitterly cold with salt already covering the pavements, which made me wonder why the windows were open on the airport bus. The airport wasn’t particularly busy for a Friday morning, although mid-November isn’t really peak travel time for most. Whilst wandering the terminal I spotted the signage for KLM at Gate 17, and naturally assumed that this would be the departure gate. So I was a little surprised to find it was actually Gate 14. And since the signs with the queueing directions were still at Gate 17, this resulted in a bit of a chaotic rugby scrum at boarding, with nobody knowing where they were supposed to go and the gate agent screaming at them to get back in line (although nobody knew exactly what line she meant as there were no signs), before stropping off in a huff, muttering that we were all idiots and it wasn’t her fault. Which is fair, as it is clearly the responsibility of the passengers to ensure the right signs are at the gate so we all know where to queue. Said nobody ever. Egg mayo sandwiches this morning, which disappeared into my bag and then into a bin at Schipol.

223 Amsterdam to Bergen (KLM): When I originally booked this trip I had a 2hr transit at Schipol before heading to Norway, so I was more than surprised to receive an itinerary with a nine and ahalf hour transit in Amsterdam, with my original flight to Bergen vanished into the ether. Presumably it was cancelled for ‘operational reasons’. but nine hours is a long time in any airport, so I headed out through security and out into the Netherlands for a daytip in torrential rain to Zaanse Schaans.

I arrived back at Schipol six hours later, slightly damp and laden down with Nijntje goodies from the Hema in Zaandam. En route to security I was accosted by a salesman with some beauty products who insisted on smothering something on my nose to clean the pores and buffing a few nails before being rather disappointed to find that I did not want to spend ninety Euros on his wonder cream or whatever it was.

The flight clearly wasn’t going to be full, as an announcement went out before boarding asking if anyone would sit in row 14 at the emergency exits, which was a bit of a first. And I scored an empty row again to enjoy another egg mayo sandwich (carry-on bag, then bin at the tram stop at Danmarkplass). And whilst I’m sure the descent into BGO is probably very scenic, it would be completely invisible at 11pm, so I wasn’t tempted to shift over to the window seat. First impressions of the airport were very similar to GOT last month, modern, stylish and Scandi. And there was a very pleasant surprise on arrival when I discovered a duty-free shop, where I took the opportunity to start my beer shopping early at considerably reduced prices.

224 Bergen-Amsterdam (KLM): The tram from the city to the airport was a fairly lengthy and dull affair, which was livened up considerably on arrival when some poor traveller dropped an incautiously balanced bag of wine bottles and smashed them all over the concourse. Oh dear. BGO was fairly quiet, with a clutch of automatic bag drops upstairs at departures and very few staff to be seen. So it was annoying when I tried to check my bag and was instructed to see a desk agent, as there were none around. Almost an hour passed before an actual KLM check-in desk opened, where I was cheerfully informed that my bag had to be checked by staff as I was leaving the Schengen Zone. Another wonderful benefit to be grateful to Brexit for, what glorious sunlit uplands British travellers live in nowadays. Despite a 30min delay the flight down to AMS was routine, and I took the opportunity to stock up on more beers at the duty free beforehand, although I resisted the temptation to buy some Fazer advent calendars.

225 Amsterdam-Edinburgh (KLM): Just one final cheese sandwich to go before being finished with KLM for the year, I headed to my gate at AMS in the knowledge that with this trip I had now maintained silver status for another year. However, on arrival at the gate it looked like this had the potential to be another ’embarrassed-to-be-Scottish’ flight; a bunch of young lads were careening around the gate area, blind drunk and generally being fannies. With the various delays at AMS today due to fog, it seemd their original flight to ABZ had been cancelled earlier in the day and they had been rerouted onto this one.

The problems started as soon as boarding was complete and the safety demonstration started, when one of them decided it would be fun to film it. With KLM’s strict policy on not filming crew or passengers without their consent, this immediately drew the ire of the purser, who stormed down the aisle to confront them and insist on seeing the pictures/video being deleted. A brief war of words erupted, which at one point made me think we were gonna be heading back to the gate to deplane someone. Although this would have been tremendously amusing, I was also mindful of the fact that I was working tomorrow, and didn’t want to be delayed by an hour. Luckily the flashpoint passed and there was no need to taxi back and relieve ourselves of a fanny. And it was pleasing to see the crew would not serve them any alchohol later on, with a puzzled shrug from the stewardess answering their entreaties. Shame this crew hadn’t been on that flight in January 2020…

218-221 Sweden 2023

218 Edinburgh-Amsterdam (KLM): I’ve been told I can be a little scary-looking sometimes. So when I was waiting at the priority bag drop this morning and the ground handling staff at the desk inadvertedly called forward one of the ordinary pax before spotting me, it seems an imperceptibly-rasied eyebrow of surprise from me was enough to strike actual terror into the guy when he belatedly noticed me and immediately callled me forward. Throughout the whole interaction he was extremely flustered, obsequious and apologetic, and his hands shook visibly when he handed me a boarding pass (which I didn’t even need). I felt really bad about it: despite being even older than me, I guessed the guy was relatively new to this job, and it seemed like I had really shaken him. Hopefully he doesn’t have too many nightmares about me.

Had another empty row this morning, and the Holland Herald was good again this month, with articlwes about KLM’s birthday, travel in Chile and the operations center in AMS that plans flights weeks in advance and keeps everything ticking over

219 Amsterdam-Gothenburg (KLM): with a lengthy transit at AMS of almost four hours, I decided to treat myself to some lounge access this morning. It didn’t cost much; my miles had finally reached the stage where a complimentary visit was within reach, and I happily made my way to the Schengen lounge. As I was visiting a lot earlier than last time, there was a breakfast menu on at the hot buffet, with sausages, pancakes, omelettes and fried potatoes on offer. The plates still weren’t big enough, meaning I had to go back for more twice (well, that’s my excuse anyway).

The flight was fairly pleasant, and I was pleased I had taken a window seat on the port side for the views over the archipelago on descent. GOT was a new airport to tick off the list: first impressions were that it was a bit bigger than I expected, very modern and spacious. In other words, Scandinavian. My checked bag appeared as soon as I apporached the carousel, and the airport bus was waiting right outside the front entrance, ready to depart in just a few minutes time. Definitely arrived at worse airports (hello EDI…)

220 Gothenburg-Amsterdam (KLM): after a brief inspection upon arrival, I was back at GOT a few days later to explore what had looked like a very pleasant airport. The bag drop hadn’t actually opened when I arrived, but that was okay, I was probably there a bit early (as I usually am when using a new airport for the first time). The queue for security wasn’t too bad, but that didn’t mean I was going to let a businessman skip under the barriers and get in front of me, and the same death stare I had inadvertedly deployed in EDI a few days ago stopped him dead in his tracks. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to be a bit intimidating looking sometimes.

The food and retail after security were pretty decent and, being in Sweden, I naturally spent most of my money on Finnish chocolate, (which was actually cheaper than it would have been in HEL). Special mention for the hot dogs from the 7-Eleven, which must be one of the cheapest hot food options going at any airport.

221 Amsterdam-Edinburgh (KLM): having read about the super-efficient operations centre at AMS in this month’s Holland Herald, I was a little surprised to have my flight home delayed due to there being no cockpit crew available. Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing they predict weeks in advance? Still, being an afternoon flight home for once, I wasn’t too worried about a slight delay. And maybe afternoon flights would be a good idea in future, as there were no issues on arrival at EDI for once. Perhaps they just switch into useless mode after dark…

214-217 Finland 2023

214 Edinburgh-Amsterdam (KLM): mixed things up again a little this morning with the 9am KLM flight. As was customary, I now pulled rank and used the priority lane to drop my bags. However, I still managed to get stuck behind a woman with six large bags to check and apparently no visa for wherever she was heading to. Whilst waiting to check my bag, I noticed the Australian Deaf Bowls team were also in the queue; did that mean there would be noise or there wouldn’t be noise…

As always seemed to be the case at boarding, there was a last-minute call for volunteers to check their bags into the hold for free. But this month, there was a new edge to the message; if they didn’t get enough volunteers, they would simply take the bags from customers in zone 5. This made sense later on when I read an article in the Holland Herald explaining how the boarding zones worked; 1 and 2 were for the first and business class pax and Flying Blue Gold members, 3 was for the Flying Blue SIlver and other frequent flyers and 4 and 5 were for the ordinaries. So having my bag shoved in the hold shouldn’t be something I’d ever have to worry about

215 Amsterdam-Helsinki (KLM): The border at Schipol was quite busy for a Thursday morning, especially with only two staff working. I wasn’t in a mad rush though, and still had plenty of time to do a bit of window shopping ahead of my return next week. Once onboard, I found I had the pleasure of enjoying my cheese sandwich in an empty row, something of a rarity on a KLM flight. The flight was pleasant, but minus 10 points for a landing at HEL that felt like a drunk elephant stepping off a kerb.

216 Helsinki-Amsterdam (KLM): Timing is everything in comedy; at around 3pm, as I was checking my bag full of Finnish beers and sweets upstairs, the baggage handlers at HEL went on strike without any warning. Completely unaware of this, I passed through the fabcy new security scanners that you don’t have to take anything out of your bags for, and found my way through to an unusually busy terminal. The first sign of trouble was repeated announcements apologising for the current disruption being caused by today’s industrial action. What industrial action? A quick scan of the Finnish news on my phone told me what was happening, as did the ever-growing number of passengers and the ominous red words of ‘Delayed’ next to every single flight on the departure screens.

Under the circumstances, I decided it would be best to immmediately start preparing for the worst. It looked by flights were being delayed by around two hours, and with just under two hours transit time at AMS before the last flight home, a similar delay to my flight could easily mean spending the night in Schipol. I was fairly well organised; charger and adaptor in my bag, and a fully-charged power bank. I also had plenty of cheap snacks packed away, knowing how expensive HEL was after security. All the same, it would be best to keep hold of what money I had left for some more food and drink if need be, meaning I sensibly ignored the urge to spend it on duty free and other goodies.

As it turned out, my flight was only delayed by a mere five minutes, so I coulda splurged after all. Better safe than sorry though, and it’s not as if I didn’t have enough Finnish beer in my checked bag anyway.

217 Amsterdam-Edinburgh (KLM): Another empty row on the way home, twice in one itinerary! But as I sped home in spacious comfort, I couldn’t help but wonder what horrors EDI would have in wait for me tonight; would it be the missing airstairs, the late ground staff, the locked security doors? Actually, it was none of these; tonight, the safedock system at the gate (which electronically guides aircraft safely to their stand instead of a marshal) was switched off. So the aircraft sat helplessy just yards from the gate, completely unable to move any further forward. Most of the issues that I experience on arrival at EDI are unheard of elsewhere, but this one was truly incredible, I wouldn’t trust the management here to run a bath let alone an international airport…

And the bags took forty-five minutes, despite the aircraft baing parked right next to the baggage handling facility.

208-209 Germany 2023

Edinburgh=Berlin (Easyjet): I’m no monarchist, however, I was more than happy to accept the gift of an extra bank holiday to celebrate the coronation of King Charles. Once again, the airport was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday morning on a bank holiday weekend, and this week there were no random stag parties on the Berlin flight. There was however a hipster twat in a Partick Thistle tracksuit top and brogues, who I immediately despised. There was also a particularly tall gentleman behind me who spent almost the entire flight trying to massage my lower back through the seat with his knees. Suffice to say I was happy to finally arrive at BER for the first time two hours later. 

First impressions of the airport was that it was also fairly quiet for a Saturday. The border was well staffed and only took a few minutes to get through, one of the main criteria I have in judging any new airport. ONce through security things were a little more confusing, with an endless variety of signs directing you to the various public transport options. I didn’t feel these were particularly clear, and there were an awful lot of them. Having finally found my way to the right S-Bahn, I then found that it was only going a few stops because of construction work. This meant getting off and finding my way across town in a combination of buses and U-Bahn. As I boarded the first of the buses, I was delighted to spot the hipster Partick fan getting on the same bus, pleading with the driver to tell him how he could get to the Olympiastadion for the Hertha game. Knew he was a tosser.

Berlin-Edinburgh (Easyjet): Let’s get this out the way straight off the bat. I know airports are expensive, but sixteen Euros for some currywurst, fries and a coke is fucking ridiculous. Anyway, we’ll come back to that…

Having realised I could get the Regional Bahn back to BER, the return journey was considerably more straightforward. I hadn’t taken much time to explore the new airport on arrival, so I was a little early in order to have a look around. Again, it wasn’t particularly busy, and I wandered around to take a few photos  before heading to security, which was fairly quick and easy. The shopping and retail options were pretty decent, and I decided on a little meal from the food court on the upper level, where I was robbed in broad daylight for some very ordinary currywurst at a not very busy restaurant that somehow still took ten minutes. On the plus side, there were plenty of beers available to buy in the various shops, and I managed to squeeze four Berliner Kindls in my little backpack. One of the best features of the airport was that each gate had a little charging station with enough USB 2.0, USB C and lightning cables for ten phones. However, nobody could use the one at our gate as some fucking clown unplugged it from the wall to charge his laptop. 

The flight back was uneventful, but EDI had one more unpleasant surprise in store for us upon arrival. After last month’s fiasco when there was no ground staff to let us off the aircraft for twenty minutes, today the ground staff was present but didn’t open all the doors to allow us to proceed through to the border. With 140 passengers standing in a corridor before a locked door for fifteen minutes, someone somewhere realised our plight and finally opened the door. You have to hand it to EDI, every time they find new and innovative ways to fuck up the most basic airport operations….

206-207 Switzerland, France 2023

Edinburgh-Geneva (Easyjet): After the KLM flight to Amsterdam, the Easyjet flight to Geneva must be my second most travelled route. EDI wasn’t as busy as I might have expected for a Saturday morning on a bank holiday weekend. Having gotten through security without any fuss, I found my usual quiet spot out on the East pier, where I noted with alarm that there was a large stag party about to board the morning flight to Berlin at Gate 18. Since I would be getting on the same flight next Saturday morning, I hoped this wasn’t something I’d be seeing next week. Whilst waiting to board, for some reason I randomly decided to buy my first ever copy of National Geographic from the newsagents.

Once onboard I was delighted to find that, despite being a fairly busy flight, I had achieved the holy grail of an empty row. There was a little bit of pre-flight chaos before we got under way though. Firstly, there was an argument involving someone in the exit row behind me, who objected to being told to put their bags and coats in the locker for takeoff. Then a young man decided to move seats before takeoff, earning a stern lecture on weight and balance from the crew. With all these issues, shoutout to veteran cabin manager Julie, a no-nonsense ginger weegie who was taking no shit from anyone and soon put everyone in their place (literally!). There was also a slight departute delay due to the ongoing French air traffic controllers strikes. As the captain pointed out, it would be hard for us to get to Switzerland without flying over France, but they would do their best to make up the time en route.

In recent months I’ve been tending towards booking aisle seats, as I’ve seen (and filmed) most of Europe from the air by now. Plus I don’t trust my ageing bladder to last two hours. But I’ll always make an exception for flying into Geneva, which is always great for the views. And having an empty row, (along with easy toilet access), I decided to treat myself to a beer. Easyjet were now stocking Jubel, a peach lager which I’d had the pleasure of sampling when the rep had come into my local recently. With an empty row, fruity lager and stunning mountain views, the flight was about as pleasant as it could be.

When we arrived at GNV last year I had seen the new terminal building that had been built since my last visit pre-Covid. I had a lot more time to admire it this time, as the queue for the border was pretty lengthy. In fact, it was so lengthy that I was starting to get seriously worried about making my connection across town to Annemasse and my train onwards into the Alps. Twenty-five minutes later though and I was through, and was heading into town with just enough time to briefly admire Lac Leman en route to France.

Geneva=Edinburgh (Easyjet): After a pleasant few hours in the Geneva sunshine, it was time to head back to GNV for my flight. Security was pretty quick, and might have been even faster if the woman in front of me hadn’t been trying to enter the security area by scanning the barcode on her luggage receipt stuck to the back of her passport. How do some people even get dressed in the morning, let alone travel to another country…

The last time I’d departed from here I’d had the dubious pleasure of Swissport’s underwhelming lounge. Today I would have to entertain myself, and was reminded how appallingly expensive this airport was. Fortunately I’d had the foresight to purchase a sandwich and snacks from Lidl in the city before heading out here, but I still had to fork out £4 for a bottle of water. After boarding, by some miracle I found that once again I had achieved the holy grail of an empty row. This meant another can of Jubel for the flight home, which was otherwise uneventful.

204-205 Netherlands 2023

Edinburgh-Amsterdam (KLM): Just for once I decided to mix things up a bit by getting the afternoon flight to Schipol. It would be slightly more expensive, but that was ok as I had my £25 discount voucher that KLM recently gave me for my birthday. As it turned out the voucher didn’t work, but I was glad of the long lie for a change. The later departure also meant that for once I could also get a bus into town with my checked bag full of Irn-Bru for a certain someone. I forgot about some of the recently acquired perks of my silver status though, arriving at EDI a lot earlier than I needed to considering I had priority baggage drop and wouldn’t need to queue. The airport was a bit busier than I might have expected on a Thursday afternoon in March, but not so busy that I still couldn’t find a quiet corner to wait in peace.

Another of my recent perks is priority boarding, the operation of which remained something of an enigma. I can’t remember any announcements or signage telling me that I was welcome to board at my leisure, but I wasn’t really bothered anyway, as I only had my small cabin bag. There was a slight delay after boarding, as our departure was held due to heavy traffic at AMS. The only other excitement onboard the short hop across the channel was wondering if it would be the cheese (yay!) or the egg mayo (boak!) sandwiches. Beemsters won out this time, meaning I didn’t have to discreetly drop my sandwich into my bag for disposal later on. 

The delayed departure didn’t have much effect on the flight time, but the wait at the baggage carousel did. Luckily I had rather prudently booked my train to Rotterdam for a full hour after arrival, so when my bag finally turned up I still had plenty of time to peruse the options at Schipol Plaza before catching my train.

Amsterdam-Edinburgh (KLM): Much as I love some of their train stations, I do find the workings of Nedelandse Spoorwegen a bit of a mystery sometimes. With a few hours to kill in Rotterdam before my train to Schipol, naturally I hoped to leave my bags in one of the station luggage lockers. The only problem was that the lockers were beyond the ticket barriers, something I have never seen in a single train station in all my travels across the globe. Could I use my tickets barcode to enter the station, deposit the luggage, exit the station, then re-enter it again a few hours later? I had my doubts, so I asked one of the staff at the ticket barriers. Rather than answer, he took my phone from me, waved it at a gate and pushed me through it. I guess I would find out the hard way. Turned out I was able to re-enter again later, but it still seemed very strange.

Another mystery was what happened to my direct train. Having collected my bags, I scoured all the departure screens for any sign of my express, but neither the train, its departure time or its service number were anywhere to be found. I eventually gave up and found an alternative which would take three times as long and stop at almost every station in both Zuid and Nord Holland en route, but I had plenty of time to spare (more than I realised as it turned out…)

There was still time for a little pre-departure shopping before checking my bag, so I purchased a few last cans of beer from Albert Heijn (which I’m sure I was undercharged for). Having repacked my checked bag with the extra beers, I headed upstairs to deposit it. There were plenty of staff available at desks 12-15, however, only one of them seemed to be doing any baggage checking. Fortunately enough they were kind enough to let me intrude on their conversation for a few moments to check my luggage and head off to departures. Security was a little better, where the multi-tasking staff there were able to have a conversation and process passengers at the same time. The border could have done with one or two more officers though; if you’ve got time to count the fifty-three people in front of you in the queue, then the two open desks are probably not enough. 

But time was not an issue this evening. Having made a few small purchases, I was then alerted to the fact that my flight was delayed by fifty minutes. This was due to the flight crew being delayed on an earlier flight they were operating. Schipol is a great airport with many facilities, but nobody needs an extra hour in any airport anywhere ever, especially when one of the few things still open is the Heineken Bar. The delay turned out to be a little over an hour, longer than the actual flight (and its cheese sandwich, yay!)

As frustrating as AMS can be though, EDI was all set to outdo it in a late-night show of hopeless incompetence. Witness the twenty minute wait for a set of stairs to get us off the aircraft. Be astonished at the half-hour wait at the UK Border. Marvel at the further forty minutes for baggage. A shambolic excuse of an airport, which I dearly wish I could avoid using sometimes.

202-203 Spain 2023

Edinburgh-Madrid (Easyjet); I was pretty annoyed when my original flight for this was cancelled and I was rebooked onto one the day before. An extra night’s accommodation to pay for, another day of spending money to add to the budget and another valuable day of annual leave swallowed up. That said, come the day of the flight, I wasn’t terribly unhappy to be travelling just after lunch on a thursday rather than a dawn departure on a friday, so maybe the change was no bad thing.

EDI was a bit busier than I might have expected for the time and day of departure. And unlike the dozzy heights of my last trip, there was no lounge access or business upgrades today, just a Boots sandwich in a quiet corner and waiting for the gate announcement. When it came to boarding, I amused myself by playing Easyjet bingo; original flight cancelled? Yup. Bins full of coats and jackets? Yup. Spurious announcement about someone with a nut allergy onboard? Yup

The flight was fairly full, and it felt even more so with the gentleman sitting beside me having particularly wide knees and elbows. But there were some fine views en route as we hugged the almost perfectly straight line of the French Atlantic coast before crossing the western edge of the Pyrenees. And as it was my birthday trip I treated myself to a can of Rekordilig whilst I enjoyed the views.

Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barejas was a new airport for me, and it was nice to see a few unfamiliar tailfins as we taxiid across the apron. The terminal was pretty big, but not too crowded, with hardly any queue at the border. But once a crowd started building up, extra border officers quickly appeared to alleviate the situation, an absolutely mad idea that will never catch on.

Once through the formalities, finding the metro station to head into town was quite the mission, involving a lengthy hike and a fairly useless information desk assistant. But I got there eventually and managed to work out how to use the ticket machines. There was, however, a brief moment of alarm en route when the first station name didn’t seem to match the network map, but it was all fine.

Santander-Edinburgh (Ryanair): Seve Ballesteros-Santander was another new airport for me, the 50th I’d flown from as it turned out, and the first one I’d had named after a golfer. And very conveneintly located it was too, just a fifteen minute ride from the bus station for a few euros.

Having looked at the flight schedule I wasn’t expecting anything particularly grand or lavish, and I wasn’t disappointed. The terminal building was at least modern, if modest. Security was a matter of minutes, although I was a bit surprised at being asked to take my trainers off. Post-security, there was a small duty-free store and a little cafeteria. Not the smallest airport I’d been in, but definitely on the petite side. Not the most organised either, as once the flight began boarding, the regular queue somehow ended up on the aircraft before the priority one.

The flight was routine, with the only incident of note being two particularly brain-dead flight attendants struggling to understand my seatmate’s request for some chips. I listened with growing exasparation to the exchange, with one of them trying to explain that there was only chips with the chicken nuggets and that they couldn’t be separated. I was almost at the point of screaming SHE MEANS CRISPS FOR FUCKS SAKE, SHE’S SPANISH, THEY CALL THEM CHIPS when dumb and dumber finally got the message, and provided her with a pipe of Pringles.