The snow is all melted :( That was fun for a few days. Now there are sad carcesses of melted snowmen everywhere and the snow has turned into a dirty, icy sludge. I realise this is my 3rd post on snow but it was just SO SPECIAL and it made everyone so HAPPY. I’m willing to bet that no one got stabbed on Monday as the entire population of London were outside frolicking.

Anyways, here is the start of our Amsterdam trip that I’ve had written down for ages but hadn’t blogged yet. Our plane departed at 9am.

The day before:

“Can you please book the tickets for the bus to Gatwick. Please, please make sure you look at the times carefully”.
“You’re not going to believe this. I was just about to book them for our arrival time in Amsterdam, not our departure. You know what? I’m going to do this when I get home so you can supervise.”
“Ha, ok, good plan.”

Day of departure, 6am:

“Get up! Bus is at 7.25am”
“murghgh”

7am:

“Oh shit. Oh no. Marcelo, the bus was at 6.20am. We were meant to get to Gatwick at 7.25″.

To Marcelo’s credit, at this point he was incredibly calm. I was hyperventilating. Luckily the bus for the airport goes every 20minutes and we were able to sneak on another one without paying extra.

7.30:

“You know, I think it’s going to be ok. I think we’re going to get there with about 50 minutes to spare”.

8am:

We hadn’t moved in ages. There had been an accident on the motorway and the bus company told our driver that the direct route to the airport was closed.

8.20am:

“Ok, we’re pretty screwed.”
Marcelo went to beg the bus driver to please please do something, just try take the “closed road” it might be open.. we can’t sit in traffic all morning. She told him that maybe she could wing it, there was another way to the airport, but it’d still be pretty hit or miss if we’d get there on time.

8.40am:

Arrival! Success! WHERE IS THE CHECK IN.

Check in:

“Oh I’m sorry honey, the check in has closed”. *whips out walky-talky* “Yea, hi, hi, I have 1 male, 1 female name is Lilley. L.I.L.L.E.Y…. ok honey, you kids need to RUN through security now.”

We both got pulled up at the metal detector, got a full pat down and a scan. Marcelo’s bag got pulled up and his deodorant got taken. They slowly swabbed his bag for drugs. They took my toothpaste to stick it through the x-ray machine again. Because I brush my teeth with weapons of mass destruction.

We ran out of the main security room and smack into another sneaky little one. It had a separate and specific shoe scanning machine.

We then ran barefoot, shoes swinging from my hands, through Gatwick Airport in a desperate dash to the gate. It was so freaking close, we made it on to the plane luckily, however it had been delayed.

“Good morning, this is your Captain speaking. We would like to apologise for the delay and the fact the doors at the back of the aircraft are still open. I know it’s cold, we are aware of the situation. It’s just – *chortle chortle* it’s just the catering truck has broken down behind the aircraft. Well, more accurately, it’s broken down half way through the door. We are trying our best to remove it as quickly as possible.”

A seriously short flight of half an hour later and we’re finally in Amsterdam.