Ol' Blighty - The Perfect Sobriquet!

Blight: To destroy, ruin or frustrate.
Synonyms: Curse, Plague, Scourge, Bane

Ok, granted, that's a secondary definition, however, since I'm not dealing with plants, it's the applicable one. Anyway, Blight seems to be an exceptionally good word from which to derive the sobriquete for London, Blighty. It seems to be the bane of my existence! I cannot get there for love, nor money. Well, that's not necisarially true. If I tried money, I could probably get there. But that's the point, isn't it? When one is flying standby it's because one hasn't got (or doesn't want to spend) the money! Anyway, there just seems to be no way to get there from here.

Kind of hilarious, really. I flew to JFK no problems. I've now been here 3 days, 2 nights. And in fact, LONDON isn't my original destination. In actuality I want to get to Manchester so I can take a train to Dronfield, where my best friend and her family live. Hilarious that I've been jumping between Manchester and Heathrow airports for 2 days. Last night I had this brilliant idea.... I'm going to have to take the train anyway, so... what's restricting me to flying into England? Why couldn't I fly into Aberdeen, Scotland? Or Paris, France? Or Malaga, Spain? Or...... AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS! I love lightbulb moments.

Anyway, I went to the service desk and spoke to the attendant there, Millie, who was just an absolute doll. Totally helpful and sweet. We ended up trading email addresses because she wants to do some travelling and needs some tips on what to see and where to go and how to book things once she hits Europe. So funny.

Ok, back to the point.

Millie booked me into Amsterdam for this afternoon, arriving in the wee small hours of the morning, tomorrow. Excellent. The standby list for that flight is much more hopeful than the 44 people trying to get on an already stuffed flight to Heathrow last night!

I knew last night I'd have to speak to the ticketing agent to get my seat request card for Amsterdam because, when you switch airports, there's a charge of some sort. Distance or taxes is bound to work against you.... And I was right, there was a price difference. But.... Murphy must have had the day off because it wasn't a charge to my card, it was a refund! And it was no measly $3.10, either. Oh no. It was a brilliant $399!

Well colour me shocked.

That means that I can totally fly from Amsterdam to England, take a train and STILL end up ahead! Yeah, that's just a stupid amount of tax on the UK airports. Hello my new home base! Not only that, the Amsterdam Airport, Schipol, is a brilliant airport. There's loads to do (even a couple of MUSEUMS!) and some fabulous benches for sleeping, you can even get a shower. So, I'd much rather book a cheap flight to Amsterdam, fly into there and kip on the benches if needs be for the night 'til I can get out. And, considering the track record for flights to London, I'm much more likely to actually get on a flight to/from Amsterdam than one to/from London.

There are 2 flights this afternoon (actually, maybe 3. I know for sure of 2 -- 4.15 and 6.00. But I want to say there's a later one as well.) Here's hoping I get on one!