Quick, to Gatwick!

Although we planned on having a whole day to get to the airport, judging by our family’s excellent time management skills, we arrived in a bit of a rush. We planned on dropping off our rental car in London and then taking a train to Gatwick Airport, but at step one, we ran into a slight issue: the traffic was HORRENDOUS (well, English standards horrendous, definitely not as bad as Bali). We quickly dropped off our car in the pouring rain and took a train towards Gatwick Airport. We arrived at London Bridge and thought we had time so we went off to go sightseeing around the local vicinity. We hurried back to the train station to catch our train, but to our surprise missed it by a minute. All this time we thought our flight was delayed by 45 minutes, but yet again, to our bad luck, the plane was somehow on time. We believed it was impossible to catch our flight but took the risk, hoping for some miracle to happen. 

Once at the airport, we took the bus to the terminal and as quickly as our legs could carry us, dashed to the check-in and luckily made it on time. The second obstacle was the security. They didn’t allow us to skip the line, so we had to wait the longest 5 minutes of our lives stuck at the back of the line. Once we got there, I rapidly took off my jacket and watch, tore off my shoes, and shoved my bags into the tray. With that speed, I may have won a fastest-security-check contest, if there even is such a thing. We rushed with our heavy bags to the gate as if we were at the last 100m of a marathon.

By some miracle, we had made the flight, making it the second time this had happened. We sat there heavily panting and high-fiving as the final call was made, and the gate closed right behind us.

LAST CALL

If you’re wondering what the other time was when we almost missed the flight, you’re in luck. It happened a month before this one, when we were flying from Bali, Indonesia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We arrived at the airport earlier than usual to talk to some friends we were planning to meet. As our conversation kept lengthening, we lost track of time, and when we scanned for our flight on the departure board, we realized that under the status section were the two words ‘LAST CALL’ written in bold red letters. I never thought two words on an airport screen could look so menacing, yet there they were.

As soon as we noticed, we rushed through security and sprinted down the most extended winding Duty-Free zone hallway (or at least that’s what it felt like) past rows and rows of stores. Unfortunately for us, the gate we were trying to get to was at the end of the building. As I had just eaten moments before, I was already getting cramps. At that moment in time, I was so grateful for whoever invented the moving walkway as it might have saved our whole trip. We approached the front desk managing to just get there in time, and were the last ones on the plane. I felt a bit embarrassed being the last and only family walking down an almost full plane with a bunch of people looking toward us. 

Sweat was dripping from head to toe, but at least I was happy that I made it onto the flight. I thought we would have learned our lesson, but sadly not, as this was the first of two times this had happened to us so far. At least I could enjoy our flight.