All in all it was a long day, the morning spent wandering aimlessly from Chamonix, contemplating just how different it was from Meribel and trying, and failing to see any actual ski lifts. I did however see a French hippy woman wandering around with no shoes on. And I had a fabulous burger from a tiny little shack called the Annex. My staff accommodation was also called the Annex and was an absolutely disgusting place in which I point blank refused to spend any time what so ever, so the decision to eat food produced in a place with the same name was only made when my companions had raved about the place as they had visited it only hours before hand when they were drunk, and were now returning for sobered up seconds.
At 3.15pm, myself and two other people finally got into a van and went to the airport. I brought with me four of the best packed bags anyone has every seen, within them was a huge amount of clothes, ski boots, a double duvet, speakers, a bottle of vodka and a bottle of gin, two other pairs of shoes, a laptop, make up, toiletries and a variety of other things totally (not?) necessary for a life in the mountains. To help you understand just how impressive this packing was it wasn't 4 suitcases, it was 1 suitcase, 1 boot bag, 1 carry all and one hand luggage bag. Now that was impressive packing. It did however cost me £68 to put it all on the aeroplane. As we checked in I found myself trying to take the other two's passports and tickets in case they lost them, even though both of them were grown men.
Now what the customs people don't tell you is that although they specify that you are only allowed one hand luggage bag on the plane, they do not specify how many coats and jumpers you are allowed to take through. I tested this yesterday by taking through two ski coats and a massive woolly jumper. For the first set of customs I put one coat inside the other and no one seemed to notice or to care and then didn't even bother for the second.
So.. getting everyone's luggage onto the plane proved to be the easy bit of the journey. As we moved on to go through security I was stopped and pulled to one side to have my bag searched. Now, even though you know that there is nothing in your suitcase that shouldn't be there, there is always a moment of terror in case someone, somehow has managed to get into your suitcase and plant drugs/knives/ a bomb and a life spent in prison flashes before your eyes.
Anyway the security woman opens up my bag and sees that inside it are a huge amount of DVDs, 'Ah' she says in her Swiss accent, 'are you a DJ?' I just smiled, and tried to look how I imagine a cool female DJ to look, as she took the top DVD, presuming it to be a CD from my imaginary lucrative DJ career and waved it at the man who spotted my bag as a potential terrorist threat and asked him if that was what he had seen in my bag. What she didn't notice and I did was that the DVD that she was waving round Geneva airport had two words written on it, and those two words were 'Lesbian Vampires'. To those who haven't heard of the very silly spoof film Lesbian Vampire Killers, a DVD entitled Lesbian Vampires could make them think I was into some very very dodgy porn film, and this in turn could have got me into a lot of trouble with customs. Luckily however she just put the DVD back and I went on my way.
Although I would have loved to do a lot of shopping in the airport, I remembered that I am in fact poor and cannot afford to shop in the Gucci and Chanel shops that make up Geneva airport. So the boys decided that we should instead look for a bar. They were both incensed that there was not a Wetherspoons in said airport and were quickly disheartened that, as we walked round, the only place selling alcohol was the Champagne and Oyster bar. Now I would have loved to while away the hours at the Champagne and Oyster bar but unfortunately the boys were not of that same opinion, and we made two laps of the airport, with them both chuntering loudly about there displeasure with the whole situation before I spotted a little place with an actual beer tap. The two boys visibly relaxed and finally stopped moaning.
An hour later we boarded the aeroplane to Heathrow and, like a child on his first aeroplane ride, one of the boys I was with, JL, made it absolutely clear that he wanted to sit by the window. I made it clear that if he was going to sit next to the window then he couldn't be getting up and going to the toilet every few minutes. He took this so much to heart that by the time we landed in Heathrow he was in so much pain that he ran at the speed of light to the bathroom in the airport.
We were literally rushed through Heathrow and onto the next plane, without any time to buy the food we were so desperate for by then.
The next flight went by in a blur, with JL deciding he didn't really want to sit by the window again. What we did find out though, that we had missed on the first flight, is that when the BA air hostesses come round with their trolley offering the free chicken tikka wrap and a drink, is that they only have the soft drinks on display and they actually have a whole range of things hidden away inside the trolley! All you have to do is ask! Wine it was.
We got to Manchester and waited for our bags, first one came off, then all of mine. But there was nothing for JL. His bag it turned out was sat waiting for him in Heathrow. It also turned out that that bag contained every item of clothing he owned other than what he was wearing.
It was a slightly smelly few days for him until his bag was delivered to his house.
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