Stansted vs Rodez

I am back from my jollies and while I wade my way through the billion photos I took whilst I was away and try to find a spare moment to try and remain relaxed and feeling holiday fresh (bit of a fail when you consider I got back home at 11.30pm on Friday and was on a bus to York at 9am on Saturday to go and babysit my nephew for the weekend and I have 2 nights at home before I go to Liverpool for 3 days on a training course. Yeah....forget relaxing) I will give you a few comparisons I noted between the two airports I used to fly out and fly back.

Flying over France

Arriving into Rodez airport

- Come off plane (incidentally after one of the most mental landings I've ever experienced, we bounced twice.)

- Walk into terminal building

- Hand passport to one of 2 people stood immediately inside the door to have your identity checked

- Pick up bag off carousel immediately behind airport officials

- Walk through small turnstile to people waiting for you
- Get out of airport less than 10 minutes after landing

Arriving into Stansted airport

- Come off plane

- Walk for FIFTEEN-TWENTY minutes (and I walk fast) along corridors and up escalators and beside moving walkways

- Get to passport control which is total mayhem and is enormous. People are everywhere and the queues are crazy. Feel incredibly sorry for anyone not carrying a UK or EU passport because that queue doesn't move at all. Takes another 15 minutes to get through passport control.

- Try and fail to figure out which carousel bag is on. Realise this is because they haven't bothered putting it up on the screen. Take 10 minutes to figure it out.

- Walk all the way through the airport to get to where the train leaves to get back to Liverpool Street station

- Get out of the airport approximately one hour after landing.

Departing Rodez airport

- Walk into terminal building.

- Walk up to one of three check-in desks and check in

- Turn around and walk through security, set off alarm, take off bracelet and go back through. All ok.

- Sit in very large waiting room with a vending machine with drinks in it.

- Go through the one and only gate on to the plane.

Departing Stanstead airport

- Walk into terminal building

- Get caught up in what appears to be filming for Little Britain, I might appear on TV in the future looking incredibly flustered while David Walliams tries to get me to stick money in a bucket for a fake charity.

- Walk round in circles trying to go through security but getting distracted by shops like Accesorize and Monsoon and WH Smith books.

- Get through security, don't set off any alarms, happy days.
- Choose out of one of the many possible cafes and sit down in Starbucks to read magazine
- Walk for about 20 minutes to Gate 50 and on to the plane.

If you don't hear from me again for another week don't panic. Like I said, I'm off to Liverpool on Tuesday and won't hit the ground until Friday. I'm going to take my laptop away with me and try and get some blogging done but, to be honest with you, I'm not holding my breath. Which is also why you might not get any comments from me either. I logged into Google Reader and the number scared the crap out of me and I logged back out again, how dare you all keep posting while I was away?! I will do my best to catch up with you all, I promise.