Off to America!

Well I sit here at Gatwick Airport at a stupid hour in the morning after having to travel down by train last night. I have spent a wonderful night propped up on a plastic chair that must have been designed so you could not sit in it for more than 3 minutes at a time so you will wander the shops a bit more and hand over your hard earned cash.

Why spend a night at Gatwick I hee you thinking??? Well it was all very last minute but some friends in America are moving house this weekend and called and asked if I would like a free holiday in return for humping a few boxes around! After checking with wifey to see if I was allowed how could I say no!???

So it was a mad dash to sort out insurance and the visa to get into america as well as realising the cheapest way to get to Gatwick from Nottingham was on a train but because of the early morning flight I would have to spend the night at the airport and with hotels at over £100 for the night there was no way I was stretching to that for what would have been about 4 hours!

So with book in hand I spent the night awake switching between reading and the strange going ons of an airport at night. Now I have to say most work at an airport is a thankless task as us travellers take no heed or notice of how well the place is kept clean and maintained, in fact I would go as far as saying we only notice when something goes wrong or is broken.

The whole airport ran down to peace from travellers at about 1.30 am and started filling up again at 4.00am so not much of a window for the amount of work that gets down including their current refurbishment work!

It also surprised me how many people actually spend the night waiting in an airport! I thought I was the only tight bugger who would put up with the discomfort to save money but there were loads of folk!

Went to check in this morning and the airline had no record of my ticket but found it in the end after much scrabbling about on their computer systems and they grilled me on why I only bought my ticket yesterday? What difference does it make when it was bought? A bus driver doesnt ask if you want to get on his bus "Now???" when you buy a ticket so why an airline? I figure of course its because in their eyes we are all potential criminals which is now a sad presumtion of life. Innocent until proven guilty?? My arse!

Anyhow Kentucky here I come and seeing as I have never done America before this should be good.