Departure

Some days are your “lucky day” and on some days, you should never have woken up. The departure-day could in many respects have been better. When I booked the ticket, I forgot that 1st May is a bank holiday in Sweden and the train operator runs limited services. This resulted in that there was no train that could take me to Stockholm-Arlanda airport in time and I had to get my parents to drive me. Very popular as the day before (30th April) is “Valborg”, an old Nordic tradition/festival that is one of the few days each year that everyone has to be recklessly drunk.
Anyway, after less than five hours sleep due to lots of last-minute packing and waking up even earlier than when I had to go to London with Philippe for work (which still is one of the dark moments in my life), the day continued. I nearly forgot my mobile phone and had to turn back after 10 km, I got a terrible headache which prevented me to feast on the free beer/wine on the BA flight and also, the flight was fully booked and passengers were offered to take a three hour later flight and be compensated with €250. I was of course the first one at the counter (as I had a 4 hour wait on Heathrow anyway) but that would involve a 40 minute transit, which the BA bitches didn’t allow and the fat guy with the beard behind me got the €250 instead.
Fortunately, my mood was saved by the HSBC adverts at Heathrow Airport. These clever ads play with different viewpoints and conclude that everyone sees the world differently (which certainly is true).
In fact, I got to the airport although it was 1st May, I didn’t miss the flight, I arrived to Johannesburg in time, I had my phone with me and I didn’t pay a penny more for the flights than I agreed to at the time of booking. And I didn’t arrive drunk and all the headache was gone after a night of sleep. All-in-all, a quite good day.