Editor's Blog Jun 22th 2012
Ed's Travel Experience
Modern air travel leaves a lot to be desired, gone are the golden years of taking leisurely hops between countries with a service that could only be rivaled on the big old cruise liners, or on a zeppelin pre Hindenburg.
Today's budget flying is a thing of such unspeakable horror, that from the moment you purchase your ticket online you are already regretting not paying the extra thirty-five pounds for an allocated seat.
Like stampeding buffalo, the unclean masses sprint and trample everything in their path in a bid to be first at the departure gate. Mangled elderly tourists lie twisted and torn, strewn along the concourse like some obscene bloody red carpet that those that have pre allocated seats strut on like peacocks towards their waiting piña colada.
Food on aircraft is an adventure to say the least; you buy your meal, it may arrive hot or cold or an unpleasant combination of both. You peel back the lid and release what to everyone in a twenty seat radius thinks is a nasty fart.
You are almost guaranteed heartburn as your gastric juices try to deal with the morsels of cardboard tasting duck a la orange. Anything that sits in a foil container for long enough will turn into cardboard; it's a well known fact.
Sitting cramped in a aluminium cylinder, sat next to a bloke with body odour so strong it begins to melt the nasal membranes. At thirty seven thousand feet, this is not my idea of fun, that's why I drink before and during a flight. I wish to be without feeling, without care, I wish for the numbness that alcohol brings.
But you can bring back the days of glamour when jetting around. For a fee that would settle the debt of a small third world country, you can purchase your own private jet, complete with pilot; most of the aforementioned problems become a thing of the past. Five star service providing you with in flight jacuzzi and if you are feeling frisky, a massage.
No such luxury for me though, as I decend to three thousand feet through the grey clouds that cover the green fields of the country of my birth, like a blanket of depression. Going through the border controls I feel the meal that I consumed on my air lingus flight trying to make an un-welcomed return.
At least there is some normality as I leave the arrivals lounge, making my way to pick up my budget car, it's lashing down with rain, but I won't let that get me down as I have survied yet another flight, safe in the knowledge that I am embarking on yet another adventure.
Ed.
