Rhodes to Iceland

Rhodes 18 July 2018

Rhodes airport, 38 degrees, check in a nightmare and now we are sitting on the tarmac waiting.  All passengers onboard. Planes taking off all around us.  BUT we just wait. 15, 20, 25 minutes after our take off time. The captain announces, “All BA planes, across the world are grounded”

We look at each other thinking, it must be another terrorist attack.

He continues calmly... ‘The computer at Healthrow is down and they are not answering their  phone. (Hey I wouldn't answer the phone either).

Two hours later the problem is solved and we set off. We arrive in London at 1.00am. We have booked a “Kabee” ride to meet us, but expect that he has taken off hours ago… No here is a text message.  A red Citroen is approaching.  I call.  ‘Where are you?’ We both ask at once.  A small effervescent man pops up and within minutes has us up the lift, into the parking area and into his car.   We are off to our Easy hotel.  

Chatty and friendly our driver is entertaining until he tells us how much he admires Trump because he is not corrupt.  His voice increases in pitch and volume as he tells us about his relations in Afganistan who have been killed.  I curl my arms around my head and try to go to sleep.

The hotel is miles away… it isn’t until 2.00 am that we arrive.

Its modern, orange, modular and I can’t wait to get into the clean white double bed…..to sleep…..I wake at 4.00 am yelling.  ‘The alarm didn’t go off’, only to realise the alarm is set for 5.00!  I fall into a heavy sleep.  At 5.00 am I’m shot into reality by the sound of the alarm. Quick pack, teeth, toilet, run. 

 The booked cab is not there.  I check with the guy at reception.  It’s on its way.  A car sleers into the carpark, stereo blazing.  Door open and kids tumble out.  Drunk.  Happy. Threatening. 

A slim, cocky, black guy glides across the carpark while a pubescent white girl drapes herself across the boot.  Another guy leaps out mixing some lethal cocktail into a plastic bottle.  A rounded black girl sashays her way towards her man and the booze.

A buzz and a click and the young black guy is into the hotel.  25 pounds for a room with no windows.  A beige middle-aged women exits the hotel, trailing her wheelie bag behind her.

Thank goodness a big black cab roars into the carpark.  A guy leaps out.  ‘Room 17?’ 

‘No room 2 to Terminal 5 Gatwick’ I answer.   He says nothing but just slings our bags into the back of the car.

The beige woman trails back across the carpark and as we leave and I wonder if we’ve unintentionally taken her ride.  No time to think as we race towards the airport.. and then we are there. .. bags out and into the maelstrom of customs, by 7.00 we are having a very mediocre breakfast costing $54 in Gordon Ramsey’s.  Onto the plane and 2hrs later we’re on our way to Reykavik..