Brits abroad: the stress of de-stressing

After what seems like the longest winter recorded in Britain, spring is finally coming. We’ve had the ‘beast from the east’, ‘beast from the east 2’ and it’s socially awkward cousin ‘hail and freezing winds’ over the last few months. Doctors reported that people are suffering with a flu that is taking much longer than normal to get over and I personally am on my 4^th cold of the winter. It’s fair to say that everyone is getting pretty fed up. That’s why after seeing blue skies and highs of 17 degrees, everyone was hitting the pub garden and routing through the piles of coats to find the pair of sunglasses that haven’t been required for at least 6 months. Edit: It was 26 degrees today and for the first time ever we were cheering on the topless men in white vans, because we were all just so happy to be reacquainted with the sun!!!!  However, despite how positive people appear when the sun is out, us brits are realists. We know full well how temperamental the weather is here, which leads to the inevitable and necessary booking of a holiday. Whether you’re a city break fan, a countryside retreat lover, an all-inclusive 5* enthusiast, or you really don’t care and just want a last minute cheap week of sun and cocktails – holidays are the highlight of the year. So why is it that so many elements of planning, travelling or actually being on holiday become stressful? If you relate to the following points then congratulations, you are really British. If you don’t… then you’re probably following the organised and stressed friend/partner/ family member round the airport while you think about what you’re going to eat next.

Booking the holiday

As soon as the initial idea of booking a holiday arises, the stress begins. You’re not entirely sure where you want to go but you have a rough idea, there are so many package deals and options out there… and you’re not particularly strict on dates… so this will be easy to organise! A friend of a friend got an all- inclusive week away with great flight times for £250… which immediately stirs up some crazy competitive nature in yourself. You’re not sure who you are competing with but you are not about to be mugged off on price. No way am I having people give me the sympathy look when I reveal I’ve paid £750 to go to blackpool. Nuh-uh… not on my watch. However, for some reason all the flights are £200. If you have money then £200 is more than reasonable for return flights to Spain, but I have seen the crazy flight deals and truthfully I probably can’t afford a holiday right now, so I AM GETTING A BARGAIN! You scroll for hours, slightly amending your search by date, by stars, by location and after a while they all start to look the same. I love searching for holidays but the problem is I have the taste of 5* and the budget of 2*, so it’s all becoming very frustrating. You close down all of it and clear your cache/ history (is that the same thing?) As all of a sudden the prices triple and you can’t afford a flight to Newcastle. You eventually settle on a location but you then have to decide between the hotels, which becomes a minefield, deciphering through all the tripadvisor reviews. You’re just waiting for that bad review to blow up in your face and shatter the vision of the cheap but fabulous accommodation… Do I believe them when they say it’s the worst place they’ve ever seen? Am I going to end up at the hotel in the Inbetweeners movie with the dead dog in the well? No one wants to be the embarrassing one on the transfer from the airport getting off at the biggest dump of them all. But at the same time there are plenty of positive reviews saying to ignore the negative reviews? I’m sure it will be fine…

Getting to the airport

Everyone knows you need to be at the airport 2 hours before the flight to check in. Even if you don’t have baggage to drop off, it’s better to be safe than sorry. However, you need to factor in time to get to the airport and what if there is an accident on the motorway? What if the trains to Heathrow are delayed? Better give yourself 8 hours to get to the airport and check in. Yeah, that seems reasonable… I know one thing, you can bet your life savings that the time you think it will be fine and give yourself the standard 3 hours; there will be a 5 car pile-up, an earthquake, a national rail strike and an escaped lion from a zoo.

Checking in

You arrive at the airport after checking you have your passport, money, phone and potentially your boarding pass 80 times while on route. It’s packed. It always is. I always wonder how SO many people can be going on holiday every day yet I can barely get parked at Tesco or go to a pub without basically sitting on someone’s lap. Regardless, you find your check in desk on the screen which is inevitably miles away and get in the queue. There are 4 check in desks for your airline but one is closed and two state they are for speedy boarding/ ‘special treatment on a budget airline’ kind of people. The queue isn’t massive so you’re slyly smug at your decision to leave early and know that in 20 minutes you’ll make your way through airport security and you can finally get in ‘holiday mode’ after that. Except… the queue isn’t moving. People start tutting and theatrically start looking at their watches to make a point. Too angry to not show disapproval of the delay, too polite to actually say anything – the British motto. Without warning the other desk opens and the people at the back flock forward aggressively like they do in the' reduced to clear' aisle of a supermarket. It’s chaos. I’m not having any of it though so I push forward too because giiiiirrrrl you are not about to leave me at the back of the original queue like a sore loser. You get to the front and start perspiring slightly because the most stressful part is imminent… the weighing of the luggage. You weighed it at home and it was 14.8 but you can guarantee on the airport scales it’s going to be 16kg thus a fee. If you’re lucky you get away with it but if you’re not… you better believe It’s time to reshuffle things in to your hand luggage because that fine is not happening up in here. You’re under an immense amount of pressure as people behind you in the queue start sighing loudly and it’s the feeling of when the cashier hands your change in coins and you can’t get them fast enough in to your purse. An unspoken race to conform to social expectations of timing. If you’re not checking in luggage but need to collect a boarding pass because yours wouldn’t print (this happened to me on the way back from Budapest), this is the opportune moment for the staff to question your mini suitcase you’re using as hand luggage. I used it for my last trip just fine, do not play with me today Susan!!!

Airport Security

I completely appreciate why this part of the process needs to be carried out so efficiently but why is there a never ending maze of zig zag aisles to get through before it can even begin? Sometimes you glide through like a dizzy lemur, but usually the queue is so long you start panicking about time, despite your 4 hour advanced plan. You arrive at the conveyor belt and the stress arises of getting your liquids out of your hand luggage, your electricals out, your jewellery, belts, shoes etc off and getting it all boxed up neatly in the tray, within the designated 20 seconds. Why didn’t I do this before? Because in addition to falling seasick from the back and forth motion of the aisles, I had some crazy old woman clipping my ankles behind me with every step so I couldn’t stop. This is followed by the inevitable awkward catwalk performance you put on while walking through the metal detector. I don’t know why everyone is smug as they walk through there, even if they set it off. The people travelling with anyone who sets it off always make the same/ similar jokes ‘It had to be you didn’t it’ while the security barely crack a smile as they hear it as often as a late night taxi driver hears ‘you been busy tonight?’. Why are we so awkward as a nation that we have to make jokes about uncomfortable things that inconvenience us- like getting our bags searched when we’re already late? I may be externally smiling but if you throw away my Estee Lauder I’m going to fight you. On my recent holiday, my bag was searched both ways and as my bag veered off the conveyor belt I had a proper nostalgic flashback of the toy story 2 airport scene. That and the rising panic of ‘please don’t make me empty my whole suitcase then give me no time to repack’. I cannot deal with the pressure.

Boarding & the flight

After fighting through the traffic of people who just randomly stop in the middle of the duty free, it’s time to slightly relax as you wait to board. There’s only one way to pass the time… alcohol! You circle the area for the best option, assessing your competition who start to queue, but every restaurant and shop is packed. If you want a sandwich for the plane at Luton airport you have to get your game face on and dive in to the absolute chaos that is pret a manger. Suddenly the gates announced and you’re immediately partaking in a marathon you didn’t sign up for, or more importantly- train for. You’re at gate 27, which logically would be between 26 & 28 but that would make way too much sense, 27 is at the far end. The BEST bit about this is if you’re at an airport with those flat escalators so you zoom past the peasants that decide to walk normally next to it for no real reason except to show off. Those are the same people that actively climb the stairs at the underground when there’s plenty of space on the escalator, just to prove how fit they are. Bore off! At the gate people are slowly shuffling towards the passenger boarding bridge aka the pull out slinky you walk through to board the plane. No one wants a repeat of what happened at check in where the povvos at the back ran forward and got through first, which is crazy because we’re all getting on the same plane and will arrive at the same time but it’s a matter of principal. This is usually where the airline staff announce the plane is full and all hand luggage will need to go in to the hold and everyone very quietly complains but nevertheless hands over their luggage. Once you’ve found your seat, everyone starts eying the immediate vicinity around them whilst scouting for babies and young children. Kids can be lovely… being on a plane is not one of those times! If you’re not on a long-haul flight with films, all you can really do to pass the time is: read the ‘real life stories’ of a magazine you would never buy until you’re at the airport and it’s significantly cheaper than the decent ones, play pointless games with whoever you’re travelling with or, my personal favourite…drink. Just hope the airhostess doesn’t get stuck with the trolley half way down the aisle because you’re not getting a gin and tonic until it’s time to land.

The arrival airport & transfer

Deafened by the sound of the screaming baby on the descent of the flight, you step off the plane. That hot, hair-dryer-blowing-at-you heat hits you. YASSSS. This is why we do it year after year. After a delightful HOUR through passport control, you head to the conveyor belt with your luggage. To your surprise your hold bag is one of the first to come out and you start side eyeing everyone else who looks at you with pure rage. The staff have smashed the wheel protector on your suitcase because as usual, they’ve confused placing your luggage on the conveyor belt with the ‘who can smash up stranger’s valuables the most’ competition. You head for the exit but of course it’s an actual law for foreign airports to make signs as difficult as possible to read for tourists. It’s their sly way of getting back at us for being so self-important and assuming everyone can speak English, when realistically very few of us make an effort to learn another language. When finding your transfer it helps to read the small print of the confirmation email which I once forgot to do, when my mum and I finally found out where we were supposed to be going we missed our transfer by an hour and she was STRESSED. The good news is the next transfer was driven by an insane Spanish man that loved us and drove so fast I’m sure he probably beat our original transfer to the hotel. So if anything my mum should’ve thanked me for saving us time. Whilst on the transfer it is very possible the anxiety you had about initially booking the hotel will return. Driving through and watching the accommodation progressively become more shite is when your stomach drops and you doubt your initial thoughts that the angry man on TripAdvisor was just being dramatic.  

The actual holiday

HOPEFULLY this should be the least stressful part. You’ve arrived, the accommodation actually isn’t too terrifying and you can start to think about the relaxation you deserve. Such a huge load of responsibility of this falls on the staff at your hotel. As Brits we like a fully functioning queue and quick service, which depending on your hotel can go one of two ways. If the check in runs efficiently then usually it’s smooth sailing from there. As I don’t want to jinx everyone’s future holidays I won’t list any of my previous problems whilst away. All I’ll say is if you get a room overlooking the bins that stinks of meat and you can hear stray cats fighting… then someone at reception is going in a headlock. Oh… and be prepared to argue with an angry German over the 6am wakeup call to secure sunbeds by the pool.

Coming home

The dreaded slap of reality rolls around and it’s like the Sunday night depression but on steroids. This is when people say things like ‘I just want to be home now!’ Wow, seriously? Because the highlight for me is the 2 hour transfer, the check in at a foreign airport where the staff are rude and a delayed flight home! As a child you’d sulk and try sleep on your parents, expecting them to magically fix anything that went wrong. Being an adult is realising that things go wrong so frequently you have to pick your battles. Fighting Filipe from Thomas Cook won’t make the transfer arrive any sooner (this is ‘post week in the sun’ me talking by the way, if it was on the way out there Filipe might be in trouble!) After getting through all the airport drama, there’s only one more stressful thing to endure before you can be reunited with your dogs – the airport car park. I think its standard procedure for them to charge half your annual salary in the collection point for a 15 minute slot. If you’re delayed at the baggage collection, the person picking you up ends up driving round in circles, joining traffic and paying a fortune. Just pick your most patient friend for this favour/job! Which after reading this post, evidently isn’t me. However, if you relate to this then you know we bloody love a drink after all the inconveniences life throws at us, so we’re great fun on the actual holiday. Last minute attempt to not totally scare off anyone from going on holiday with me again…

 Let the post holiday depression commence. Maybe it's time to book another holiday?