This one doesn’t deserve a day number, as it really wasn’t a part of the holiday, possibly one of the most infuriating 15 hours of my life. You may be interested to know that I’m still halfway through the last day while I’m typing this, but I’ve had a bit to drink, and really fell like I need to get this vitriol out of my system before I bite someone’s face off.

Admittedly, the day started off perfectly. We’d packed early and headed off into the reception 30 minutes before the driver was ready to pick us up. he was a really nice guy, and he has a good chat about what had happened on our trip. He didn’t seem surprised about the conversation we’d experienced on Day 6. In fact, he seemed a bit surprised that we didn’t go for it, and also gave us some tips for locations of that nature should we ever return.

We arrived at the airport, thanked the driver for his excellent service, and this is where things started to go just that little bit pear-shaped. After typing our details into the self-checkin computer, we got our boarding passes and luggage things printed. Jonathan was entirely exempt from the baggage procedure, as his case fitted in hand luggage. Remember, our bags would need to go to Heathrow. We’d pick them up, then make our way to Gatwick for the flight back to Newcastle.

Anyway, Chris went to one desk, I went to another. We both had the same “credentials”. Our bags disappeared up the conveyor, and we headed up through the check-in gates. At this point, all I wanted, and cared about was free wi-fi, which the airport seemed to offer. It wasn’t until we were sat in the departure gate, did I manage to get connected. Some of you may remember my “Hello From Vienna” post, where I said “Or rather, the airport, as I sit in the departure lounge awaiting part one of what will be an awful journey back.” You’ll have to forgive the typos. It’s a touchscreen. I think it all came down the fact I knew we were against the clock. I also thought that Chris was going to bail the Gatwick – Newcastle flight, opting to stay with Jonathan for a bit.

Nothing could prepare me for the horror that would lie ahead. Moments after posting that blog post, I needed the toilet. I headed off to the cubicle, and without me noticing, it turned out to be one of those freaky German “shelf” toilets. You poo onto what is literally a shelf, presumably so you can erm… “examine your stool”. Trust me, there were no surprises, except the one I got when I stood up, looked down and thought I’d used the toilet incorrectly.

The gate opened, and we headed off onto the plane. Chris really hated the experience. At this point, I had nothing to hate.

The flight was brilliant. I oddly fell asleep, waking just as we were coming back to the British Isles. The path down below the clouds was literally like the set of Eastenders. I almost lost a testicle when we flew over the Millennium Dome / O2 Arena. The other testicle nearly burst when we flew near Wimbledon’s grounds. Unfortunately, this would be the last happy experience I’d have on the entire trip. Usual shit ensued, as we passed through passport control. We headed off to baggage. Chris’s turned up. I stood there, waiting. The board said “Still offloading”. By the time there was one bag left, I was freaking out. It wasn’t mine, obviously. The board still said offloading, but after this bag went around the fourth time, I expected a holy fuckup.

I headed off to the baggage desk. I handed my receipt to the guy behind the counter…

Him: “oh yeah, there’s been a mistake. Your bag has landed, but it’s going to Gatwick via van… it won’t make it to your connecting Newcastle flight”. Slightly pissed off, I completed the paperwork, It took ages. It also became apparent that because the plane was delayed and so was the baggage, the three hours we had to travel 50 miles from Heathrow to Gatwick had considerably shrunk.

Jonathan lives in Surbiton, so the plan was to get a taxi to there. He’d drive us the rest of the way to Gatwick.

We jumped into a black cab, £20 each to Surbiton. After my bag shenanigans, I was happy to pay. All I wanted to do was get home. Something became very clear. The bag and plane delay meant that we’d be cutting things incredibly fine. Jonathan did his best to get us there in time, though traffic going through Surbiton didn’t help at all. I don’t think I’ve ever heard C or J get so angry. It was plain sailing from there to Gatwick, until we got close to the airport, there was another half-mile of traffic to the entrance. Chris, probably rightly, thought “fuck this”, and jumped out, heading towards the terminus. I’d got what little baggage I’d accumulated and ran after Chris. Be aware, my feet were still on fire at this point, and I’m watching the clock. I think we had about 17 minutes. We arrive in the South Terminal, with no sign of the British Airways travel desk. Chris asks someone, who points us to the North Terminal. A train takes us over there, and we arrive at the North Terminal… Whoo, British Airways desk. there we go. About 4 minutes to spare. We go to check in.

Him: “We don’t do flights to Newcastle from here”…

Instantly, I check the paperwork. Something stares back at me. A little block of toner that reads “Flybe”.

“Well, you’ll have to go to the Flybe check-in desk, won’t you”, was the reply from this instantly dislikable bastard. That was it, game over as far as I was concerned. Defeated, by the rudest bit of customer service I’ve ever had. Technically I wasn’t actually a BA customer, but you know what I mean. The paperwork I was holding was the victim of a fit of rage. My work colleagues will know this as a “pissy fit”. I was in rage mode at this point, but Chris remembers the afore-mentioned twat shouting at me to pick it up. I didn’t, and as far as I know they’re still on the floor there. I was defeated at this point. How long would it take us to get back to the South Terminal? Dunno. It felt like the longest journey I’ve ever had. Jonathan was there, wondering where WE were. Turns out he was the only one who read the itinerary correctly and knew where we should check in at. We went to the Flybe check-in desk. One of those stupid auto-check in machines wouldn’t allow us to do it, so I went to the desk. I ask if we’re too late to check in. the cheery woman behind the desk gleefully answered that we were still on time… “Oh, thank God for that”, I reply. the last two hours of shit were instantly flushed away.

“So, zis is for the… 8pm flight, yaa?”

There. Right there. That moment. That second. That question. That exact statement. The answer was no. We wanted the 16:20 flight.

“Ahh, sorree, ze check-in is closed”.

The holiday was over. We were stranded. I said something to the woman behind the desk. I can’t remember my exact words, but it was on the lines of “If BA hadn’t lost my baggage, we’d have been on time”. I knew there was nothing she could have done. Technically I do this type of job myself, so her completely apathetic “Oh dear” was noted, yet duly ignored, as the directed towards the customer service desk

Technically, we were stuck, and I’ve never felt so broken in a long while. It’s the first time I’ve ever missed a flight. I didn’t even bother contacting the customer service desk. the mood I was in probably would have seen us (or, at least me) being escorted out of the airport. I have watched countless hours of shows like “Airport”, and they show people kicking off. I always thought they were over-reacting. I felt ashamed and positively gutted that I was now one of those.

My world had ended. I was in London, no flight home, no baggage, nothing. I rang Daddykins, pretty much in tears about the whole situation, mainly through rage rather than actual emotion. Nothing he could say would reassure me that I’d see Hartlepool again without denting my wallet with money I didn’t have. Something I’ve only just realised, is that all of the photos, facebook updates, tweet, phone calls and Endomondo reports provide a pretty accurate timeline of what happened, and if some stupid bitch in Vienna hadn’t sent my bags to the wrong airport, we’d have made it.

There was nothing for it, we would have to get the train back. Chris knew there was a Grand Central back to Hartlepool at about 19:00, from Kings Cross. This was probably the lowest moment. I was in the back of Jonathan’s car. He’d disappeared somewhere to pay the parking charges, Chris was wandering about somewhere. I was in the odd position of feeling the early stages of dehydration, while at the same time busting for a pee. Add that to how depressed how I was, the feeling wasn’t great. Add that to the fact that I rehydrated myself at a petrol station and paid more for the water than what the petrol cost, checked my funds at a cash point and realising, after drawing out the cost of the train fare, I literally had £16 to last me 19 days.

At this point, it was about 16:30. I know this because of my facebook posts. Despite feeling like shit, I thought my troubles might have given someone a smile, so I kept updating facebook. Chad *loved* it. Cunt.

The next part of the ordeal was to get back from Gatwick to Surbiton train station. Remember, we still had a time limit. The M25 had an accident which slowed down things considerably. I’d already resigned myself to sleeping in a bush that evening. I just left him in charge. Two tickets were purchased from Surbiton to Vauxhall, and from there to Kings Cross. Basically, a Zone 1-6 £8 day thing. I’d give you all the details, but I’ve literally just given the ticket away to a guy called Geoff who likes such things. Glad you found my blog by the way.

The train picked us up at Surbiton and trook us past some sites such as the Battersa Power station. OK, by sights, I mean one. It was raining, and I really didn’t care

Chris was like a man possessed though the underground tunnels. I literally had to tell him to slow down, thanks to my feet. He told me afterwards, that we were actually extremely late getting the train. We arrive at Kings Cross / St. Pancreas (or whatever it’s called), to see a familiar looking train sat, waiting at the platform. We were at least guaranteed to get home, though we didn’t actually have a ticket. We’d get one when the conductor came around.

I went for a much needed piss at this point. I don’t care about the rule of not flushing the bog at the station. It’s 2011. These things should have tanks, or something. I sat back at my seat, and Chris delivered the ‘bad’. There was a broken down train somewhere near Peterborough, and we’d be stuck in the station for about an hour. I could have cried. Some of you would have noticed the photo of me on facebook, of someone “entirely fucked off with the British transport system”. Well, that was took right at that moment.

Eventually, the train set off. At the first opportunity, I headed off to the bar. I didn’t realise they had an entire carriage dedicated to being a bar. Obviously, everything was out of cans / bottles. I didn’t care, I was happy to return to my seat, my cold Stella ready to be consumed.

We’d got a table seat. Now, on the Grand Central, they have “game boards” printed onto the table. Apparently, you can “rent” game sets for your journey. Some tables have Cluedo, some have Monopoly, but they all have chess/draughts boards printed on them. this journey was going to be filled with abject tedium. Thankfully, I had a bag of Euro coins on me. Plenty of 1cent and 2cent coins. Enough to have a game of draughts!

Things were going swimmingly, until another train went past. The sudden shockwave caused the coins to be scattered all over the board, and the game had to be abandoned. Thanks to a genius bit of real-life bugfixing by yours truly (we simply moved the pieces towards the edge of the squares so when a train went past, there was less change of movement to other squares), we were able to complete a few games. Each game turned out to be a lengthy battle of cunning and stealth, taking much longer than a game of draughts really should. Eventually, the Stella I was drinking in the previous picture made it hard to distinguish between the 1 cent and 2 cent coins, so the games were abandoned.

My mind turned to the fact that we hadn’t actually paid anything for this journey. My heart would stop at every whoosh of the sliding doors. Amusingly, one of those whooshes turned out to be one of the management types at Employment Palace. We didn’t exchange words, more of an acknowledgement of “Is that… nah, it can’t be…”

Stations went past, and we were getting closer to home. Still there was no conductor. We arrived in Hartlepool at 10:48, and my mood instantly lightened. We didn’t actually pay a bean for the journey home. All it cost me was 5 hours of my life, which is, to be fair far less than the time I’ve taken typing these blogs on the holiday, uploading the photos and deleting Chad’s comments.

I’d made arrangements for Daddykins to pick me up once we’d returned back to the town. There was just one thing I had to do. As soon as I left the train station, I was straight down to my favourite Indian… “Chicken vindaloo, pilau rice, naan bread and chips please”.

I’d originally intended to finish the posting there, but if you’ve managed to read this far, another few paragraphs clearly can’t hurt. I thought I’d update you with my baggage story. Pretty much, my entire wardrobe was in that case, compressed to a “zip file” (you have to zip the case to close it, see what I did there? Maybe that’s now zip files got their name? Meh). I don’t think I mentioned what I got given. A stock letter with a claim number scrawled on the top in biro.

I was home, and my baggage still hadn’t turned up at my doorstep. I thought I’d give the website a go. Facebook describes in perfect, stunning HD quality what happened, and my reaction.

Once again, I was spitting blood. I wasn’t shitting blood, but I’m sure that afore-mentioned vindaloo pushed me close to the edge. I gave it a couple of hours, and tried the website again. No joy. I just had to ring their 0844 number via the house phone. Naturally, I was forced into one of those pressy-button scenarios, with images of my bag being fed into an industrial crusher flashing before my eyes.

After pressing some buttons, I was transferred to an Indian call centre. You’ll be disappointed to hear that my experience with them was commendable. The guy promised me that my bag would be here by 5. True to his word, there was a knock on the door at 4:45PM, my bag arrived safe and sound.

Two days later, I arrived back at Employment Palace, only to find this was the backdrop to one of the computers I use…

So, this was it. My alarm woke me up dead-on-time. 6AM. I double-checked and triple-checked the list of items I was taking home. All of the packing was taken care of, and at precisely eight minutes past 6, I knocked on C+J’s door to make sure they were awake.

They were indeed, and the last precautions were taken care of. At 6:47, I took one last image of my hotel room, and locked the door behind me for the final time.

The phoe rang, and the shuttle was ready to pick us up. We made our final descent in the lift, and was greeted with a battered old tranny van, already packed with American tourists, and complete with a cracked windscreen that looked as if it was about to give way any second. In fact, this shot sums up the state of the windscreen.

See that blurry line? That’s the crack in the windscreen.

The driver, some random Japanese guy could only speak about three words of English, and considering he spoke these badly, this was going to be a fun journey. Firstly, he wanted to know what terminal we wanted… now this was easy. Terminal 2E, for the flight at 10:40 to Newcastle.

“Nono, look in the book”, he said in an accent which resembled something ripped directly from an episode of the now defunct play-along game show “Banzai”. He handed Jonathan a tatty timetable. the closest he could find was the flight at 10:20, from Terminal 2F.

Fair enough, clearly this driver knows what he was taking about. after all, judging by the state of the van, he must have been doing this for some time.

The seemingly disgruntled Americans departed at their appropriate terminals, while we strained our necks to make sure our bags were still on board. Now, imagine this. if your seat folds down to allow the passengers getting off to exit the vehicle, the normal thing to do would be to get out of the van, and allow the seat to be pushed forward?

Yes, that’s exactly what I thought too. I attempted to get up, this crazy driver said “Nono, you stay there”, and began to push the back of the chair forward so the Americans can get off, while I was still sat in it, now bent double. What the hell? Why couldn’t I have just vacated my seat temporarily?

So, after ignoring the advice given on the OFFICIAL ITINERARY OF OUR BLOODY HOLIDAY, we arrived at Terminal 2F. Amusingly, the driver also demanded that we give him a tip. Before I could say “Yes, here’s a tip, get your windscreen fixed”, Jonathan handed him a €5 note, and he happily went on his way, whilst we were just left in shock and awe at the most catastrophic journey in the whole history of airport shuttles.

We arrived at the airport in very good time. In fact, a bit too good, as our flight wasn’t even listed on the boards. We were left kicking our heels around Terminal 2F for a good half an hour, waiting for our flght to appear on the boards. With almost a sense of inevitibility, the flight appeared, and yes, we were indeed at the wrong terminal! Terminal 2E was our terminal, therefore we had to make our way over there. I had predicted this would happen, so I wasn’t too phased. Jonathan, however, appeared to be spitting blood at this point.

We reached the approprate gate, and waited in a mile long queue. Joy. Someone came over and checked our passports, Apparently, the queue was for US passngers flying out of the EU, and we didn’t really need to wait in the queue.

Therefore, we were shown out of the queue. “Go ahead, you can use the self check-in desk”.

We approached the machines. No less than five seconds after leaving the queue, we got stopped by some jobsworth… “Excuse me, but you cannot use these…”

I butted in at this point, and in the most patronising voice possible, I expained.

“WE ARE GOING TO ENGLAND. THAT GENTLEMAN INSPECTING THE PASSPORTS HAS TOLD US THAT WE CAN USE THE SELF CHECK-IN”.

Before that statement sank in to Jobsworth’s feeble little mind, we were approached by a friendlier member of staff who inspected our itinerary, and agreed that we could self check-in.

Jesus Christ. More sodding automated computerisation.

She showed us how to use it. Thankfully, this one was a piece of piss, thanks to the fact that the machines we used actually worked, unlike the ones back in Newcastle. Within seconds, our seats were allocated, we had our boarding passes, and our hold luggage quickly disappeared once again into the unknown. Cool.

We went to the appropriate gate. Again, there was a queue about a mile long. and again, we were told to join a shorter queue. Of course, I didn’t know this, and while Chris appeared to be wandering off, he was actually going in the right direction.

And once again, we were approached by *another* jobsworth who didn’t quite know what he was doing. I don’t even remembering acknowledging him, I just suddenly took notice of some argument going on, along with some French guy shouting “Merde” very loudly, and continued following Chris.

Once again, we were submitted to the humiliation of Customs. Well, I say humiliation, I passed through cleanly. So did Chris. Jonathan, however was not so lucky. He returned, shoes in hand, with a grimace that looked like he’d accidentally chewed on a tube of superglue. Let’s hope he didn’t get the “rubber glove” treatment.

Thankfully, that was going to be it for the searches. It was time to hit the duty free. I was impressed at the sight of a Virgin Megastore. Therefore, while C+J hit the booze shop, I went there.

And within 34 seconds, I was back outside of it. Megastore? Bollocks! It was absolutely tiny, and the choice of music on offer was laughable. Bugger. I caught up with C+J again, and continued to browse the duty free shops. There is an appalingly small selection at CDG airport. Annoyingly, there wasn’t even any type of bar to while away the hours. Instead, we just walked around the poor selection of duty free shops. Naturally, I stocked up on cola bottles. They taste so much better than the ones in the UK.

So, after walking around a bit, we eventually found a cafe type place. I wasn’t hungry, but instead settled for an Orangina, which cost me a cool €3.50. My word.

I amused myself by checking some of the error messages on the broken advertisement displays. Even these weren’t remotely interesting. all they were was the time, an IP address, and some code number. The rest of the time, I was wondering whether the airport lounge was lit by Philips QL lamps. No seriously, this is how boring waiting for a plane can get.

Eventually, after what felt like an age, we made our way downstairs to the appropriate gate for our plane. Well, I say plane, I actually meant bus.

A bus would take us from the terminal building to the location of where our plane was taking off. Now, you remember the boarding pass we printed out only a few hours before? It was useless. Absolutely useless. It got scanned in, by the desk at the gate, and a NEW boarding pass flew out of the machine. Apparently, the plane that was going to take us back… er, wasn’t. Therefore, all of the seat numbers had changed. I don’t know, and obviously will not know the reason for the change in plane.

At this point, I didn’t expect any delay, so I phoned Daddykins and let him know everything appeared to be in order.

We were then kept on the bus for what felt like a fortnight. Obviously, there was always going to be a bit of waiting to do, but personally, the less of it I did, the better. I’d been awake 5 hours by this point, and hadn’t done a single thing. It felt like such a waste. Still, we’d be gaining an hour when we landed in Blighty, so it wasn’t too bad.

The bus circled through the airport, slamming the brakes on for every single little thing that happened to cross its path, meaning that the unlucky ones who were standing up got thrown forward. Luckily, I got a seat, and wasn’t going to give it up for anyone.

We left the bus, and climbed on the plane. Now, this plane was brand new. According to the brochure stuffed in the back of the seat, it was only a few months old, and it actually smelled like it. All of the seats were leather, there were entertainment units in the back of the seats (sadly not powered on for such a small journey) and the whole thing was immensely immaculate.

Unfortunately, we were kept waiting once again, and by this time were roughly 45 minutes late. I was sure Daddykins would have been waiting in Newcastle by this point.

Now, this is where Daddykins used a bit of ingenuity (probably spelled wrong) that I didn’t expect from him. He had used the trip to Newcastle airport to kill two birds with one stone. He had an errand to run, and also had to pick me up. So, he went and did the errand, and after completing said errand, he sent me a text message.

At this point, it was likely I was still sat on the tarmac in France, with my phone switched off…

Daddykins knew that the first thing I’d do after we landed was switch my phone back on.

Anyway, after what felt like an absolute age, we were making our way around the airport whilst being sat in the plane. Eventually, we got told to prepare for take-off. And off we went. The plane left the tarmac, and I was prepared for the whole spectacle of flight.

It was the first time I’d flown on a relatively clear day, and I’d bargained with Jonathan and Chris to get the window seat. It was awesome. Words can’t describe it.

Pictures, however, can. This was my 6th flight, and the first proper one where I’d actually managed to remember to take my camera out of my hand luggage before getting on the plane.

I think overall, I took 80 photos just out of the plane window. I’m overjoyed that I was able to document it.

Coming into land was my favourite part. We flew over Whitley Bay. I was able to point out to Chris.. “Look! That’s what’s left of the Spanish City!”. Very little, by the way.

We kept getting lower and lower, until we eventually touched down at Newcastle airport. Obviously, as previously mentioned, I switched my phone on, and the text message Daddykins sent was delivered. This meant that he knew we were close. I rang him as well, just to inform him of the safe landing, and the fact we were about to collect our bags. We were to meet him on the outskirts of the airport, as he was NOT going to get stung for those extortionate charges like last year…

Within minutes, we were hurling down the A1, back towards Hartlepool. Our holiday was well and truly over, and unbelievably, there was no major disaster. All luggage was intact, and not stained.

C+J got dropped off at their abode, I returned back to Mercuryvapour towers, expecting to be slobbered to death by two dogs who hadn’t seen me for a week. Instead no, they just slobbered over Daddykins, while gesturing that they wanted to go out. Bah.

So, all in all, Paris is a very nice place. Most side streets and the metro smell of piss, the beer is extorionate, the view from the top of the EIffel tower is amazing, the french can’t drive for Toffee, the most popular car is the renault Twingo, the pigeons look even stupider, and I have been informed by Marko who occasionally leaves comments on this site that Lidl’s do own-brand cherry Jaffa cakes…

This is now the end of the 15,352 word essay. If you want to find out more, you can check out all of the pictures I took here:-

Paris Day 1
Paris Day 2
Paris Day 3
Paris Day 4
Paris Day 5
Paris Day 6
Paris Day 7
Paris Day 8

I might stick sections of the video I took on Youtube in the coming days, but as far as the blogging and photos go, that’s your lot! Normal service, about how much I hate work and dull crap like that will return shortly

Hello, and welcome to Day 1 of my Paris holiday write-up. Let me tell you that this should be well documented, as I have taken over 1,000 photos. No, seriously.

Right, where to start? Well, the beginning would be nice, I suppose. therefore, I shall whisk you back to approximately 7AM on Tuesday, 15th July 2008. I awoke from my steaming pit at that time, as we were going to pick up Jonathan and Chris at 7:30. Well, that’s what I thought anyway.

I had a quick bath, only for Daddykins to inform me that he actually wanted to set off at 7:20 and get to Chris’s by 7:30. Oh, the joy of it all. Therefore, the quick bath got even quicker. In fact, I barely had enough time to stick my balls under the tap.

I then jumped out the bath and began meticulously checking my hand written list of things I was taking, just to make sure everything I needed was there. It looked as if it was. Awesome!

We set off, and arrived at Chris and Jonathan’s house by ooooh, 7:34. So, only 4 minutes late. Not too bad.

I knock on the door, only to find that Jonathan wasn’t ready, due to the fact he’d been driving up here until 2AM in the morning, as he currently lives daaaahn saaaaf.

Off we jolly well popped, up the A19 to Newcastle Airport. It wasn’t long until the camera was broken out, though for now, I’ll not resort to showing you scary photos, or photos of streetlights, there’s plenty of time for that in the next hundred or so updates I’ll write about this trip.

After last years’ fiasco over parking, where Daddykins got charged £6 for waiting about 15 minutes in Newcastle Airport, he dropped us off on the outskirts, near the roundabout, meaning that there was a slight walk to the entrance. Perfectly acceptable, I thought, especially as we’d be doing plenty of walking over the coming days.

So, we enter the complex and arrive at the check-in desk. The lovely young lady behind the counter instructs us to the use the self check-in machines. As much as I love computers, I absolutely hate anything that has the word “self” at the beginning. They just never work. This was no exception. After following the instructions on the screen, it prints out ONE boarding card. There are three of us. The bloody self-service machine brings up an error, and then instructs us to contact the lovely young lady sat behind the Air France desk, who then checks the other two of us in. Why couldn’t she have done that in the sodding first place? Sigh.

As our bags disappeared along the conveyor belt into the unknown, I nipped off to buy a little travel guide – one of the Lonely Planet ones. £6 it cost, but did turn out to be very handy. I’d say that it was probably better than the one I bought for Berlin last year.

Chris got his money exchanged, and we headed to the departure lounge. Of course, this involves the added indignity of having to remove your belt, and in some cases, shoes too. It’s something that is necessary, yet strangely humiliating (though not as humiliating as getting frisked like I had to be last year).

Thankfully, this year we didn’t change planes, so didn’t have to do this twice in each direction.

Once again, the passports were checked, and we headed off to find the bar we went to last year… Disaster! The departure lounge had completely changed, and the bar was boarded up and closed! The large seating areas were now taken up by another bar (it was actually the same bar I was referring to, but it had moved out of its old location, and into where the seating area was).

The large amounts of open space has also been “built on”, and to access the gates, you had to go through a duty-free store. This annoyed me, slightly.

I went into WH Smiths, in order to buy something to read on the plane, Chris bought something to drink from the same shop, and Jonathan looked around somewhere else. As could be predicted, we got separated, and had to cross through this bloody duty free shop.

A heavily done up assistant approached me, looking like she’d just tripped up in the make-up aisle.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?”, she asked, Geordily.

I looked at Chris and said “Yes, his brother…”

There was a few moments silence, and she walked off looking slightly bemused. Eventually, we met up with Jonathan (the shop assistant was no help at all on that one), and proceeded to another bar which had been constructed, coincidentally in a Parisienne style fashion. Now, considering this was a duty free area, the beer was 33% more expensive than it was last year, and it tasted 33% warmer too.

At some point during this whole waiting procedure, we looked out across the runway to see an awesome looking flighter jet getting some service done to it.

We then hovered about, watching the destination boards, waiting for our plane to come up and show a gate number. This seemed to take forever, but eventually, up it came, and we headed off in that general direction. I believe it was the same departure gate we were at for Berlin last year, but can’t really remember. It seemed to look very familiar.

The plane was tiny. It looked even smaller than the little fokker I flew in last year. I didn’t really mind, but I was a bit concerned that we’d have to land half way through so someone could get out and wind the elastic band back up.

We headed out onto the tarmac, but not before getting our passports checked AGAIN. The flight was perfectly fine. I got chatting to a nice young lady sat next to me who explained she was off to Disneyland with her neice who was in front.

We landed, and the weather was lovely. Let me just try to explain how big Charles De Gaulle airport is… HUGE. I’m surprised it doesn’t have its own national anthem.

According to a quick play with Google Earth, Heathrow Airport is 3.3 miles from corner to corner, this is 5.5 miles.

This would explain the queue for the passport checks that we were in that must have been at least a quarter of a mile long. In fact by the time we’d reached halfway down the queue, I’d eaten an entire bag of Haribo chews. The person who I’d talked to on the plane got right to the front of the queue instanmtly because their family had a kid. By the looks of the line, it seemed quite possible that I could court, copulate and become a father by the time I got to passport control. In the sheer boredom, I began to wonder if there was anyone even slightly famous in the queue.

We collected our bags, and attempted to find some type of exit. Apparently the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was in that queue somewhere, as someone was waiting to pick them up outside the airport, waving a big white card.

Now, finding our way to the centre of Paris was going to be fun. Something that we (or rather I, as I decided which hotel to book) didn’t take into account is the distance of the airport from the hotel. A taxi may have been possible, but expensive. We decided to risk the train system. We must have spent about an hour trying to work out the tube map and roughly where we wanted to be. It would have been a good idea to actually plan that type of stuff before I’d left England, or at least consulted Google Earth for the nearest tube map. It would be something I’d kick myself later on in the day about.

We consulted the tiny (yet useful as the week went on) tube map, and got a train to one of the main stations in Paris – the name of which escapes me (Gare Du Nord, or Gare De Lyon, I think), and then get on to the metro to a station named Invalides. Unfortunately, this metro station was 0.6 miles away from the hotel, and Chris’s homing-pigeon instincts let us down for the first time EVER, and we headed off in completely the wrong direction, meaning that the journey we’d taken walking with heavy bags actually went on for 1.2 miles. Luckily, on the way there was a shop that sold water at a reasonable price, otherwise I don’t think I’d have made it. Although it was warm at the airport, the city heat just made it unbearable, especially when we didn’t know where we were going, with no end in sight. Eventually, after what felt like a month, we just happened to stumble upon the hotel. We checked in, and after taking a moment to regain composure, and to soak up the sweat, we headed up to the rooms.

The first of (thankfully not many) embarrasing moments came when I collected my key and couldn’t actually open the door – Jonathan showed me how to do it. Turns out the handle on the front of the door is just for show. you open the door by turning the key clockwise, and then pushing. Clever, but confusing when you’re dehydrated, hungry and fed up of lugging a case and a bag around a capital city. Actually, it’s not clever at all. I guess I just suck at opening other people’s doors. Maybe I’m the ani-burglar, or something

Anyway, I went into my room, Chris and Jonathan (hereafter referred to as C+J as it’s too hard to type otherwise) went in theirs. It was about 6PM at this point, and we arranged to meet an hour later to go out and see the Eiffel Tower, as it was less than a mile away from the hotel. I decided to have a proper bath seeing as my earlier one had been so rudely interrupted, and a lie down.

Two hours later I awoke. I went to C+J’s room, and knocked on the door. No answer. Were they both dead? Had they gone and left me all on my own?

At great expense, I called Jonathan on his mobile. Chris answered. I asked where they were, and they replied they were already at the Eiffel Tower. He’d knocked on my door, and there was absolutely no answer. How odd.

Anyway, they made their way back along to meet me, and all three of us had a wander up to the Eiffel Tower.

This was 15th July, the day after the Bastille Day celebrations, which meant that there were still areas cordoned off. New trees which had been planted still had bits of hardboard around them, and metal barriers littered the avenue leading up to the tower. This arrangement, however, allowed some people to make use of the obscure arrangement and make a temporary football pitch in the sand.

It’s only until you get underneath it that you notice all of the effort that had gone into creating it. it’s really quite intimidating.

Something also intimidating is the sheer amount of foreigners selling stupid, badly made little miniature eiffel tower keyrings and shit like that. There are hundreds of them littered around the city, all selling exactly the same tat.

Something impressive was the size of the queues. to get up the tower. Absolutely enourmous. 45 minute waiting times at least. I could think of better things to do for our first night, so we gave it a miss. Instead, we crossed the River Seine for the first time, and began to take photos of the sun going down, with the Eiffel Tower mostly in the foreground.

After the sun set, we headed off to the bars near the hotel, as there were quite a few. It was getting on, and we didn’t fancy anything to eat, so we just got beers. Extortionate is the word that would fit in nicely here. Something like €5.50 for a 250ml glass. That’s less than half a pint. Holy cow.

One small beer later, we returned to the hotel to sum up the day, but not before we nipped into a local shop to pick up some essentials, and those essentials would be… BACON FLAVOUR BUGLES! My word, I had no idea they still made Bugles! I know they don’t over here. I think the last packet of those I had was back in March 2002 when I went down to London. I much prefer the BBQ flavour, but they don’t seem to exist anymore, even in France. Ah well.

I went to put the stuff in my room, and as I exited, Chris was in the middle of saying something…

“And then after that, we can… wait, did you come out of room 302?”

I nodded affirmatively, and audibly confirmed this with an “Aaaaaye?”

“BOLLOCKS. I thought you were in room 301. I was knocking on the wrong door earlier…”

I ate my Bugles, and went to bed. It was far too warm to sleep with the window closed, and far too noisy to sleep with the window open. Turns out that the hotel is situated alongside a military school, with nice solid walls so any traffic noise, or in fact the noise of people breathing echoes upwards. What doesn’t help either is the fact that the end of the road was actually on cobbles.

What made things even worse is that the room door was thin, and let any type of noise in. I swear, someone farted 4 doors away and I could smell it.

Eventually, I fell asleep on top of the covers, and prepared for Day 2…