I’ve been lucky in that I left school with a few A levels, spent a few years stacking shelves before falling into a job which allowed me to travel. I have probably spent 500+ hours in airports over the years and unlike many other people, I find them fascinating. The concept that all these people are in one place at the beginning of the day, and spread out across the world at the end of the day just intrigues me. Yep, I’m a big airport fan. Apart from Charles de Gaulle.
Whilst I love being in airports, like everything else on this planet they do tend to piss me right off, mainly due to the fact that whilst you would think that customers (ie passengers) would be the priority of an airport, we are in actual fact at the very bottom of their ‘giving a shit’ list. Seriously, every airport has now turned into a form of Disney where every security checkpoint leads you into an interminable, wibbly-wobbly route to the departure lounge through the duty free shop, similar to how every ride at Disney exits through the bloody gift shop. It’s like Ikea, once you are inside you can’t get out and any possible short cuts are blocked by over-tanned orange sales staff trying to sell you various pungent aromas from the latest name to reach celebrity via showing their genitals whilst getting out of the back of a stretch limo at the latest Who-The-Fuck-Are-You awards ceremony.
I was in Finland last week. Beautiful country filled with trees and lakes and trees and lakes and lakes and trees. And a few more trees. Lovely, friendly people; great public transport and another country that I can tick off my ‘does a Big Mac taste the same in every country?’ scientific survey. (The answer is yes so far). Anyway, I flew to Finland from Aberdeen this time. Just for a change. I’ll mention the journey in the EV later on, but anyway I’m at Aberdeen and as usual, decided to get a greasy breakfast from the local Spoons/WhateverChainIsBig. The grease was good however I made the mistake of taking a table by the window as for some reason I didn’t spot the massive number above my head; I was sat next to a bloody gate. All this meant that everyone who started to queue up for the 7:50 to Humberside (does Humberside have an airport and is it actually a place?) was staring at me munching down my eggs and lorne sausage. Not that I cared – as mentioned previously, I would never see them again as they spread out across the globe by the end of the day. Or spread out around Humberside anyway.
Did you know Aberdeen airport has a smoking area? Either did I, but I found it. Awesome.
WTF? You have to pay a pound to open the fucking door? Not sure if that is genius entrepreneurial spirit or not? Anyway, there was a guy waiting outside for someone else to pay the pound and like a mug, I paid. I didn’t realise until I got inside that the trick was to just knock on the door. The guy who was waiting and followed me in didn’t even volunteer 50p to cover his cost. Then he started vaping.
I should also mention that it was another great experience with KLM. How one side of a partnership can be fantastic (KLM) whilst the other part (Air France) be a bunch of incompetent fuckwits I will never know. Bu they are.
As I said, I travelled to the airport using the Zoe so charged it overnight and set off. The airport was right at the edge of the range and given my late return flight, I hoped to give it a charge in Aberdeen which would provide enough to get home (no off-site airport parking places offer chargers yet). After a quick rapid charge at Asda I left the car. On the way back, I gave it a small top-up at Asda before setting off home but I miscalculated a little and as I got within 5 miles of home the car started going mental with lights and alarms and a big ‘you are running out of battery you muppet’ warning. Fortunately I managed to eek it home with around 3% remaining. Its the closest I have got to running out of battery but the adrenaline definitely kept me awake after being awake for nearly 24 hours!