It's dark, it's raining, the battery on my mobile is down to 13% (Google Maps is very energy intensive), and the buildings are not properly numbered. From number 4 to number 20. I ring again. No answer again. Maybe I'm in the wrong place? I ask a local resident. "No hotel round here. Maybe an Airbnb?" "No," I replied - it's a hotel - the Russell Garden. I broaden my search to take in Roseburn Street and Roseburn Terrace. I phone a third time - still no answer. With my phone down o 9%, I call Booking.com's helpline. The extremely helpful lady talks me through it. The address is Flat 5, number 1, Russell Gardens. It looks like the owner of the flat is trying to big up the place by making it sound like a proper hotel, which it isn't.
Anyway, I find Flat 5, number 1 Russell Gardens. The three-bedroom flat (shared bathroom) is decent enough for the money. Half an hour wasted in the rain. Once inside, WiFi and central heating on, mobile charging, and all is well. But the accommodation gets a bad review from me because of the experience of locating it.
Two days later I'm back in London, flying into Gatwick as the Heathrow flight from Edinburgh was prohibitively expensive. Travel tip: Gatwick Express trains charge £19.90 for a single ticket to London Victoria - Thameslink trains charge £9.00 for a single ticket to St Pancras. Better - if you have a credit/debit card or TfL Oystercard, you can touch in/touch out and get better fares from Gatwick to London (Thameslink or Southern trains both charge £8.30 for a single to town).
My return home from London to Warsaw was an expensive and stressful nightmare. Friday 30 November. Arriving in good time at St Pancras to catch a train up to Luton Airport Parkway station, I find the lower concourse totally jammed with people. It seems that for the past hour not a single train, either East Midlands nor Thameslink has moved an inch up the line from St Pancras. Signal failure between St Albans and Luton. People milling around watching the indicator boards, listening for announcements. Nothing's happening. Minutes tick away. People with holiday flights to catch, with huge suitcases, look anxiously at their watches. No change. Finally, after about 45 minutes, there's news of a train heading to Bedford via Luton. It will be touch and go whether I make the flight.
Meanwhile, I'm checking availability of catching a later flight should I miss my one (17:15 departure). The next WizzAir flight at 20:30 is sold out. Tickets for one the following morning are now showing at over £100. I check BA. Saturday morning flight to Warsaw: £535. Along with a thousand other travellers, I make my way down to Platform B to catch the train to Luton. Boarding takes ages - the train is totally chock-full. Finally we depart, only to stop a minute later in the tunnel. We wait. The driver tells us that we are being allowed up the line one signal at a time, we'll be on the slow line, stopping at all stations along the way. Rather than shooting past all the suburban platforms we'll call in at all of them, starting at Kentish Town. Here, more desperate commuters struggle to squeeze in. We depart, we stop, we start, we stop. We wait. I'm looking at my watch. The odds of getting to Luton Airport Parkway, catching the bus to the terminal and getting through security in time before the gate closes are getting ever longer.
At the next station I make a fateful decision. If I stay on the train, get to Luton - then what? Having missed my flight, I either buy an expensive ticket and sleep in the airport (something I've done twice at Luton - never again) or buy an expensive hotel room. Or head back to London... So I jumped off the train at West Hampstead and took the Tube back to Ealing Broadway. Returning to my father's, I went online to buy a ticket for Warsaw with BA, shunning the "London" Luton Airport experience with WizzAir. The best price was £73, plus £6.00 for the off-peak rail fare from Ealing. I spend an extra £11 to get a window seat. Good. I buy the ticket (seat 37F) and immediately I check in via the app on my phone. All set.
Saturday spent working, Sunday morning (today) I wake up at 05:00, leave my father's at 05:45, walk to Ealing Broadway in good time to catch the 06:20 TfL rail service to Heathrow. Because of engineering works, this was the first train from Paddington to Heathrow via Ealing Broadway this morning. At 06:15 there's an announcement that the train is 'delayed'. Anxiously, I ask station staff what's up. Helpfully, they check, phoning Paddington station. Apparently, the train is faulty and has not yet left. Same situation as on Friday. Clock ticking away to departure time, gate closes at 07:55. It's now 06:30. Will the train arrive? If the next one, scheduled at 06:50, arrives on time, will that get me there on time? Important point - my flight is from Terminal 5. This means changing at the station for Terminals 2 & 3 and waiting for the free transfer train to Terminal 5. The word is that one of the six carriages is defective; the train needs to be separated, the defective carriage removed, then re-assembled as a five carriage set (is this correct train buffs?). Looks touch and go.
MyTaxi app gives an estimated time of arrival of 30 minutes for a cab to reach me at Ealing Broadway station. Luckily, there's a black cab rank outside. There's one cab standing there. Three guys getting in. I have a word with the driver. He says he can take me, because his passengers are going to Brentford, right on my way to the A4 and the airport. And they'll pay the first £10 of the fare, which he says will be £45 to Terminal 5. Off we go. The taxi's radio is playing Easy Like Sunday Morning. Right. The cab makes its way through South Ealing, soon the three guys are at their destination and the driver points us towards Heathrow. But by the time we reach Hounslow, he tells me that not having expected a fare all the way to the airport, he needs fuel. We stop. I wait as he tanks up (mercifully not all the way). He pays, runs back to the cab, and we're off. We arrive at Terminal 5 departures, I make it through a crowded security queue to the gate with eight minutes to spare.
Passengers for Warsaw board a bus. The bus to the plane takes forever... Hang on - we're heading back to Terminal 3, where all the BA flights for Warsaw used to arrive and depart from. We reach the plane - just one set of steps at the front, none at the rear. I board, make my way to row 37... the very last row on a BA Airbus A321 (WizzAir crams in 38 rows). And guess what - there's no window!
I point this out to the stewardess, who says yes, they know, it's embarrassing, happens every flight - apparently when the planes were first specified, they were meant to have two extra toilets at the back (four in total); a late design change and row 37 has no windows. Still, the flight's not overbooked, as soon as everyone's seated I'm given a window seat. And when I'm waiting for the toilet at the rear of the plane, I'm assuming that the wording 'CREW USE ONLY' means the second toilet, currently not engaged, is out of bounds for passengers. Turns out it isn't. "I know, confusing, isn't it?" said the stewardess.
Having said all this, BA now has the edge on WizzAir. Not just the "London" Luton Airport thing; now WizzAir has shrunk (once again) the dimensions of free carry-on baggage. Until last month, it was 55 x 40 x 23 cm, and 10kg maximum weight. Now it's just 40 x 30 x 20 cm, still 10kg. It's not as if the older size didn't fit under the seat in front - it did. Wizz just wants to force passengers to upgrade for 44zł to WizzPlus that allows to take the larger size. I checked with the Samsonite shop in Złote Tarasy - yes, they'd heard about the new Wizz size restriction, no, they do not currently make rucksacks that small. So for this trip, I had to pack my laptop into a satchel with one shoulder strap. As I wrote here, the rucksack with its equal weight distribution on both shoulders is healthier for the musculoskeletal system. Carrying 10kg on one shoulder for 10km (today I walked 16,000 paces with the bag) is not good. So, until I find a small rucksack, it's bye-bye WizzAir.
My journeys across London by Tube were hampered by delays and overcrowding. Here's Bank Station last Thursday (below)...
Signal failure at White City. Trains crawling from station to station, stopping at tunnels. By the time the westbound Central Line train for Ealing Broadway got as far as Chancery Lane, I'd had enough and walked down to Temple station on the District Line to catch a train for Ealing Broadway. It was the first train in! Great! Except that at Earls Court it was announced that this train was now bound for Richmond - sudden change of destination. Hop off at Turnham Green... station announcement - the next train for Ealing Broadway will arrive in 18 minutes time! Crap service, really.
So crap I thought in Poland it must be better. Gdziesz tam. Having flown into Warsaw Okęcie airport, I walked to W-wa Okęcie station to catch the 12:51 train two stops south to Jeziorki. On reaching the platform I hear that the train is delayed by 25 minutes. And the next southbound one after that, by 22 minutes. All rubbish. Flying or going by train - stress, frustration, delay, costs.
Yes, I could have insured my flight against missing it because of stupid old Network Rail. But by not insuring any of my 15 return flights this year, the money thus saved paid for the BA flight home today.
This time three years ago:
Thoughts on Polish hypochondria
This time six years ago:
Blogging resumes as Orange gets its act together
This time seven years ago:
The meaning of Clarkson
This time eight years ago:
A bad day on the railway
This time nine years ago:
In which I walk to work
This time 11 years ago:
Act 1, Scene 1, a blasted heath
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4 comments:
I'm surprised with all the traveling you do that you don't have a credit card which provides trip cancellation and delay insurance.
@ Gordon Hawley
Good point - I shall check my PKO BP Visa credit card T&Cs. Thanks.
And this is why people are wedded to cars, you can use public transport but you cannot be sure you will get to your destination/meet your connections. The car doesn't guarantee you make it but you have a lot more control.
Why don't you take the train to London? From Warsaw you can do it with a break at Cologne or Brussels overnight. You could do it from 108Euro if you plan ahead.
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