After such an amazing flight to London start this vacation, I swear it seems like every other traveling experience has to be hell. Waking up at 6:30 a.m., I finished packing and set off to the airport. This was a bit of a pain in the ass with all my luggage and no one to help me (except a couple nice gentlemen in the tube station who carried my bag up the stairs), but I eventually made it from my hotel to the airport and got checked in for my flight.

Going through security, I head straight to the smoking section, just I like I tend to do, and then grabbed some lunch before smoking some more until it was time to board. Of course, this is where things start getting frustrating. I chose to fly easyJet since they were pretty cheap. They are one of Europe’s low cost carriers and they were just awful and I have no intention of flying them again. First off, the flight was set to leave at 12:55 p.m., with boarding to start at 12:15. Sounds easy enough. Of course, easyJet isn’t easy and a gate number isn’t even put up until 12:20. So everyone hightails it to the gate, because they are another one of these cattle car boarding airlines and everyone wants a decent seat. Once we get there, they check our passports then tell us to sit while we wait for the plane to arrive so we can board. A little background on easyJet’s boarding process: the order goes those who’ve paid for Speedy Boarding, preboarding of elderly passengers and those with young children, then A group, B group, C group and finally D group. When boarding begins, the gate agent is so quiet when she yells that no one knows what she’s saying and everyone in A group starts trying to board. So the gate agent starts getting bitchy with everyone and giving attitude, even though here being too quiet was the cause. Instead of handling it like someone in customer service should, she starts yelling at everyone to sit down, even though there are no seats left for people to sit in.

So finally we all are on the and waiting for take off when it’s discovered that two people who don’t belong on the flight were allowed to board thanks to the snippy gate agent. They are supposed to be going to a completely different city. So thank you snippy gate agent for being incapable of doing a job a monkey could do. Since it’s a security breech, all checked luggage must be removed from the plane and inspected before we can depart. 50 minutes after we were scheduled to leave, we are finally on our way.

Even worse, this flight turns into the most turbulent flight ever. I’m still surprised they allowed the flight attendants to do drink service in that. At one point the plane even fell a little bit. Not a pleasant experience for me, but totally worth it to see Kelvin’s huge smile when I walked into the baggage claim area where he and his sister, Elaine, were waiting for me. Once we grabbed my bag, we were off to Lanark, where Kelvin lives, and I was able to meet his mom and see William, his dad, again. And even better, I got to meet Kelvin’s 4-year-old nephew, James, who I’ve heard so much about. Cutest little kid ever.