Day: September 2, 2005

…or why it's sometimes annoying to travel with other people.

Yesterday was a painful, annoying, tiring day. The conference ended at 4pm but my flight was only at 9:50, so we had a few hours to kill. The plan was to leave the bags at the hotel, wander around the viktualenmarkt, then head to the airport. I had planned to browse he duty-free shop for a few things. Of course, things didn't work that way.

Things started ok, but my foot started playing up rather quickly. I knew I had a blister, but it was only when I got home that I was actually able to inspect the damage. Not good. More later. The market was really nice, but I got annoyed when the guys decided to stop at a little shop that sold a bunch of foodstuffs. Everything smelled wonderful and looked great but I couldn't eat anything of it, which was really frustrating (in case you're thinking I was just being paranoid, the stall specialized in selling spicy exotic fare, and had peppers and garlic hanging everywhere. Ya, no). By that point, I'd been eating crap for 4 days and I was fed up. I thought we would have had a decent dinner somewhere, not have a picnic in the friggin parc where I couldn't eat jack shit. I was less than impressed. Also, by that point, I was steadily limping.

So the people I'm whit are faffing around in the parc and declaring that their food is excellent, while I'm just twiddling my thumbs and getting hungry and hot and grumpy. In retrospect, I should have just left then and there and gone to the airport on my own. Blergh. So anyway, they finally get off their duffs and we head off to the airport. To make a long story short, we got there 20 minutes before check-in closed, and every store and duty free was closed. I was fucking pissed. That whole afternoon was a bust for me. I was hot, tired, hungry and generally ready to commit homicide. I just wanted to go home.

So fast forward to a nondescript flight that I slept through, baggage claim and uneventful passport control and a 45 minute ride home. My foot, but that point, was a constant throb. I have a raw blister the size of a 10p coin. The epidermis is completely gone, with raw dermis open to the elements. Nice. I'm going to be limping for a while I reckon. I'm staying in today because I'm exhausted and – since I worked through a weekend and a bank holiday – I'm not even slightly feeling guilty about it.