This morning was manic. And I mean MANIC. We started the day by driving down to Stansted Airport. As we were flying with Ryan Air, that meant we had the option of checking in online around 30 days before the flight. We thought this would be easier.
However, just imagine 6 British teenagers looking lost in the front lobby of Stansted Airport, unsure of whether they had to check in or not. After my good friend and the only other female of the group went to check on what we were supposed to do, the lady at the customer service desk told us to go check in anyway.
So there we were. Waiting for around 30 minutes to be checked in, only to find we didn't need to and to just walk down to the security bays. Already slightly nervous for my first ever flight experience in the whole 17 years I've been on this earth, I felt dread in my stomach as I realised while sorting my luggage out, separating my liquids and electrical items from my luggage. My shoes would set the alarms in the scanners off. I sighed, and was tempted to tell (the extremely nice and sympathetic) lady behind the scanner, but my social anxiety found it hard for me to do so. Even though I have made a tremendous amount of recovery over the last 6+ months, I still find it extremely hard to talk to strangers. Especially strangers who have a higher authority and that can shout (as silly as it seems).
Red faced and hitched breath, I walked through. A moment of euphoria passed as I thought I hadn't set the alarms off. Until one of my friends, Tom, walked through behind me, and the alarms set off, raising the question of who it was who set the alarm off. I blushed, and told the lady who motioned me to the side to be searched. She smiled, and talked to me, as I let her search me. She was quite kind to me, even reassuring me about the flight and saying that the security was the worst bit. According to Tom, I was quite lucky, as the guard who searched him was quite harsh and brutal, which actually makes sense as he is the target audience for people to smuggle items through and out of the country. And as daft as he and the other guys in our friendship group can be at times, I know none of them would do something so daft.
After getting through security, we had the odious task of waiting for around 100 minutes (under 2hrs) for the boarding gate to open. The café and restaurant area of the airport was packed. Absolutely chocked full to the brim with people. This made it difficult to obtain breakfast on a £5 budget, especially as all the places in which I wanted to buy a sandwich and a bottle of water eventually cost the equivalent to an arm and a leg. These next 2 hours passed with loosing each other, and playing against each other in Mario Kart on the Nintendo DSi and 3DS.
Suddenly, the board with our flight had the words 'FINAL CALL FOR FLIGHT'. Panic erupted. We were sprinting towards the gate where the tram to the terminal was, and bounced on our heels anxiously, before rushing up the stairs and running towards the boarding bay, We entered the plane, having pre-booked specific seating so we could all sit together, before realising that someone was in the seat in the middle of our friends seats. I sighed. Why couldn't this just be easy? Jamie spoke to the nice young lady occupying the seat, and found out there was a mistake in booking and she had been given that seat. They came to an agreement that the boys could sit in the row she was sitting and she would sit behind in the spare seat that was next to two other pre-booked seats.
Once in the air however, it was all worth it. The view of the sky, being up amongst the clouds... no photo can ever catch the full magnificence of the beauty up there. If you are ever offered the chance to fly, I would whole heartedly encourage you to, no matter what your fear, once you get up there you forget it. At least, I did :)
