So I went to the movies
on Saturday night and saw 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel', and one
of the main characters had this saying that was something like “In
the end everything works out well, so if nothing is working out then
it can't be the end” - thus the title of this blog.
Things did not work out
as planned on my trip back to the UK – not that changes are always
bad, but this change was not exactly what I'd call good. Still, we
all make mistakes (even when we probably should know better)!
I flew from Perth to
Dubai, an 11 hour flight (with a few interrupted hours of sleep) and
arrived at the Dubai airport ready to transfer onto my connecting
flight to Heathrow with just enough time to go through security and
get a drink before going to the gate.
06:50
I got to my gate with
10 minutes to spare before my ticket said the plane would begin
boarding. The sign said GATE OPEN, but everyone was sitting waiting
to go through (at least thats' what I assumed in my tired mind).
07:00
(My ticket said to
board from 7 for a 7:45am flight, but there were no others going
through the gate so I sat and waited with everyone else, presumably
for an announcement letting us know that we could begin boarding).
07:45
No one has moved from
their seats outside the gate and a small voice in the slightly
energised section of my brain says that the airline should have made
an announcement if the flight is running late. However, the rest of
my inadequately rejuvenated brain brushes the thought aside and once
again I sit and wait.
08:00
I turn to look at the
electronic sign below the gate and I realise, with horror that it
says “GATE CLOSED”. All of a sudden things start to click into
place; why there were no announcements about the flight being late,
why no one else seemed bothered about the time, and most importantly
that you need to go THROUGH the gate in order to get to the boarding
area...
08:00:10
I rushed over to the
counter and explained (rather pathetically) that I had been waiting
at the gate for over an hour, and hadn't heard any calls about
boarding so I had not gone through. (Maybe it would have helped if I
had told her that my brain function on low amounts of sleep generally
ranges between 5 and 10% of the average human brain function)! She
said that I should be able to catch the 9am flight to Heathrow, and
that I would need to go to the transfer desk to sort it out.
08:05
I explained my
situation to the lady at the transfer desk (feeling like a complete
idiot of course), and she said that I would be able to get on the 9am
flight to Heathrow for a transfer fee, but that I would need to pay
at a different transfers counter. I agreed (because, well I didn't
really have much choice), and was glad that they (apparently) didn't
hold me completely accountable for my stupidity i.e. by not making me
pay a full fare again due to my inability to comprehend signs. Then
again perhaps the lady just felt sorry that I had made such an
embarrassing mistake. So, off I went to the main transfer desk to pay
my fee.
08:15
I arrived at the
transfer desk, and explained (once again) my situation and the man
made a few calls about the flights and said that I would have to go
to the transfer desk when I arrived in Heathrow to find out which
flight I could take to Edinburgh. He then asked for my credit card to
pay the transfer fee of 150 GBP. So, here's the thing; as I'm sure
many of you know, I am very good at shopping. So good in fact, that
an actual credit card would almost certainly get me in a lot of
trouble...which is why I have a debit card, and only put money in
that account when I need to. Since I had not planned on missing my
flight and having to pay a fee, I was planning to just get cash out
from an ATM upon my arrival in the UK, and only had about 150 AUD in
my debit account. Of course the machine I needed to pay on only
accepted debit/credit cards and 150GBP works out to approximately
$220 AUD, and, unfortunately for me, Emirates do not take IOU's. The
man at the desk suggested I use the airports' free wifi to transfer
funds into my debit account – perfect. So, I pulled out my netbook,
logged on, connected to 'Airport Free Wifi', and received a message
saying 'Unable to Connect to Server'. I tried twice more, with the
same results. Sigh. Back to the desk, where the man told me that the
free wifi at the airport was in fact called 'Maxspot' – now my
brain still wasn't functioning at it's best, but one would still
assume that 'Airport Free Wifi' would have been the one to go for!
So; after finally connecting to the correct server, and trying to log
in to online banking, I received another message, from Firefox: “The
site you are attempting to access was unable to load. Please only use
a connection with a secure server”. So off I went to the nearest
ATM (down 2 flights of stairs, in the Arrivals lounge).
08:30
I put my savings card
into the ATM. It said, “Welcome Fleur Tonkin, Please enter your
PIN”. I did as I was told, selected an amount to withdraw, and
received a receipt saying “This account does not exist”. That was
about the time that I began to panic, and rang Dad (who was in Perth,
at work, where, luckily it was lunch time). He transferred the funds
for me, and I went back upstairs to the transfer desk to pay.
08:40
I got the ticket for my
new flight to Heathrow (leaving at 09:30), and boarding at 08:55, at
Gate 117, which I discovered was a 15 minute jog through Dubai
Airport from the main transfer desk. I got to the gate just as
passengers were asked to begin boarding. Not an experience I'd
recommend!
From then on, my trip was much easier (thankfully!); I had two seats to myself on the flight to Heathrow, and managed to transfer onto a later flight to Scotland quite easily once I got to London, and then arrived in Edinburgh at about 6:30 pm last night. Not quite the adventure I had planned, and I'm sure I will never live down the fact that I missed a flight when I was sitting outside the gate the whole time - but I got to my desination in the end. Plus my suitcase somehow managed to keep up with all of the flight changes and got to Edinburgh at the same time I did :)
