The Terminal

"Mos Eisley Spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany." So says Obi-Wan Kenobi to young Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: A New Hope - but to be fair he might just as well as have been talking about Heathrow Terminal 3. Every time I have been through that place I never cease to be amazed by the degeneration of the human race on display here. Forget Big Brother, if you want to see how quickly society can turn into a bunch of miscreant whackos, just sit down and look around you next time you're in Terminal 3.

If you can, that is. I last went through Terminal 3 in December and the place was busier than a swarm of flies on a pile of fresh dung. There was absolutely nowhere, not anywhere, to sit - not even a square of floor in a corner! Mal and I had arrived very early (mostly to beat the traffic) in the hope of having a nice, quiet relaxing dinner, maybe a spot of shopping, before our flight to Singapore, but instead it was Bustle City, elbowing your way through crowds, endless queues for even the most menial of things - like a 20 minute wait just to buy a bottle of water. The level of frustration and complete and utter incomprehensible rudeness this brings out in people is just astonishing - people jockeying for position in the hopes of being served that split second sooner, venting their frustration on the equally frustrated and harrassed store clerks - its not pretty. But what do you expect from one of the world's busiest airports 4 days before Christmas?

But today, February 15 - what's so special about that? The fact that it's half term really shouldn't count - as schools all over the country have had their half terms at different times this year. I just don't get it. I mean, I arrived ridiculously early for my flight to Stockholm, thought I could have a nice coffee and maybe a muffin, relax a little in the departure lounge after a hard day at school, leisurely board the plane - and I find that I didn't even have a spare minute to go to the loo! Now a lot of this is due to the absolutely ridiculous security checks and subsequently ridiculously long queues. Look, I understand why they're doing this, but personally I think if you're going to be that picky about your security checks, then you need to open up more counters and put on way more personnel to deal with the volume of people being affected. Oh and while we're at it, look at how many people the waiting area in Terminal 3 can PHYSICALLY hold, and then limit the number of flights taking off from there at any given time. Common sense, people. Come on!

My first pet peeve is the new liquids rule. I had quite a long chat with my friend Jun, who is travelling with me on this trip, about this - and I do take on board the point that you could blow up a plane with a even a small amount of liquid, but how is it that in this day and age the act of placing a small bottle in a plastic bag can take so long? People, come to the airport prepared - either check it in or put it in the plastic bag BEFORE you get to the airport - stop wasting time!

Then there's the scanners. Again, I get the point of them, but seriously, why can't people take off their belts and their jackets LONG BEFORE they get to the front of the queue? It just holds everyone up whilst you dress and undress yourselves... at least now they let you keep your laptop in your backpack, rather than have to remove it...

But now my new, personal favourite, which occurs AFTER passport control (go figure?), is the shoe scan. This is supposedly done by random selection - how is it then that EVERY TIME I go through, I'm 'randomly' selected? What a pile of rubbish! You have to remove your shoes and then place them on a special shoe scanner belt thing, then the chick doesn't even look at them as they go through the machine! And of course, they don't provide enough chairs or space for people to put their shoes back on, so you stand there for ages looking like a complete wally holding your shoes and waiting for Miss Essex girl to hurry up and do her fancy sneakers up so you can do yours...

Anyway, after clearing security, I fought my way through the crowds for my muffin and coffee, battled and bashed (and I hope bruised a few as well) to get a bottle of water (conveniently marked up seeing as there is a captive market for this) and literally ran to my departure gate for Stockholm. Heaven help those who arrived the allotted 2 hours in advance, as opposed to my 3.

Once there I had to rearrange my bag so the stuff I would need for the plane was at easy access (I can't abide those people who, after sitting, staring vacuously into space in the departure lounge, doing nothing) have to hold everyone else up as they get out their crossword, chewie and a bottle of water by standing in the aisle once they find their seats so no one else can pass. It's madness!

They called my row for boarding and off I went. I was halfway down the gangway when I realised that I'd left my coat under my chair in the lounge (wouldn't have got far in -20 without it) and had to go back and get it... luckily it was still there... I swear I'd lose my head if it wasn't screwed on...!

The flight was good but the SAS airhostesses are nothing on the Singapore Airlines ones. I had to wait 20 minutes for the hostie to finish serving up the drinks because she couldn't be bothered to take 2 seconds out to stop what she was doing, wheel the trolley to a position where I could pass, let me go and then resume her work. The hosties on SIA would've done it in a heartbeat.

The flight was fairly uneventful except the lady next to me snored (why me?), then I arrived in Stockholm Arlanda airport at 12.40 am on Saturday. Jun met me at the airport which was nice. Seeing as my flight arrived so late, and bearing in mind how long it takes to get to / from the airport (at least 1 hour by bus) - and the cost! this is Sweden after all - coupled with the fact that we would have to leave our hostel rather early the next day to be in time for our flight to Luleå, we decided to find a cosy lounge and bunk down at the airport. We found we weren't the only ones with this idea, and we had to walk around the Terminal to Sky City shopping area before we found a space at Alfredo's restaurant. We settled in and went off to sleep. It wasn't so bad actually, the airport was a bit noisy but with my ear plugs in I could almost cope.

Next morning we woke early, washed up at McDonalds, had a bit of breakfast, wandered around the shops, killed a lot of time, had coffee etc before making our way to the domestic terminal for our flight to Luleå.

I had spent a total of some 16 or so hours in various airport terminals, and boy was I sick of it... Tom Hanks eat your heart out!