Heathrow, you suck

two entrances, both poohy
I had the misfortune of landing twice in London, Heathrow. Both of these occasions the airport managed to befound me with its ineptitude. I won't bother with getting a non-partisan story on the matter, so you're going to get my biased opinion. The first was arriving in from Singapore in the Qantas 747 and arrive we did... and continue to arrive on the tarmac for 40 minutes while they tried to find a gate available to put us. The second was on the trip back from Amsterdam to London. We were stuck at Schipol airport for an hour becuase Heathrow couldn't get a slot for us to land. Well, you're probably thinking that these problems are out of their control. Well, maybe, but I don't really care. I'll just ignorantly berate and hopefully undermine their confidence in their system after reading this blog after which time they'll also come to the conclusion that us mere squash players aren't going to disable a plane with our rackets and not to put it in with the bags in cabin storage. It sorta reminds me of the Germans taking the Netherlanders' bikes to make them in to tanks during the second world war.

"Give us back our bikes" you can aparently still hear if a Dutchman hears a German tourist in the midst these days. Rumour has it that Germans try and speak Dutch when they're on holiday, so as not to be heckled.

I did a pilgrimage to a pasta place in Amsterdam on Sunday night to a place which had 5 euro pizzas and pastas - I couldn't resist. Before dinner, I had turned up on Hotel Amelie's doorstep asking for a bed and luckily they had obliged. It's definitely the friendliest of the hostels I've stayed in and reccomend it to anyone that needs a place to stay for a night/few.

Anyhow, back to the story (which I'm increasingly noticing I'm telling it like that movie... Memento... where you have to put the guy's story back from the end to the beginning. If you've seen it, you'll know what I'm talking about). I have to stay in London here to suss out a bank account and phone account before I start work. Any of you know know England will understand that it's frustratingly hard to get one. And get frustrated I did. I did enjoy (with my best wry grin) replying to them explaining how "EFTPOS" is coming soon and how it works with the comment that we've had it for 10 years or so in the colonial land. However, my tenacity looks like it's paid off and I'll hear in the next couple of days about my potential new account. For those who want to have a yarn, my new number is +447774512556.

Jaharmes is coming over to Strasbourg (not Salzburg as I mistakenly mentioned) in a day or so's time. I hope to make it over there and spin a few yarns with him, but it'll probably be after I start work on the 1st of October before I'll be able to make it to France for a weekend. Before that, I'll be in Amsterdam for some orientation mischef with the new employer where I expect there'll be bogwashes, beer and lots of misdemeanour in public in dark polar trenchcoats. Ok, that was an exaggeration, no _dark_ coats.

It's a bit late, so I'll hit the sack (2am at the mo) and hopefully post a nice chirpy update in a couple of days' time.