Right, so. I'm back from Paris and this morning, I was still utterly miserable. This is the story of the Heathrow Nightmare.

After an entertaining day with friends, I went off to the airport a tad too early because they ended up having to go to class. There was an earlier flight to London which I could have managed, but when I asked, I was told that "zis is ihmpossibeul, yor tikeh is not flexibeul", so ok I waited in the airport for 2 hours, finished my book, all was well. Found out I'd accidentally kept my friend's umbrella (because Paris was quite rainy after all) and decided to solve the umbrella security question once and for all (can you take an umbrella as hand luggage or is it a terrorist weapon?). I had planned for an hour transfer time in London, I was all set, booked in with no luggage and boarding pass printed. So far so good.

Then we were told that our plane was late to come in, so we'd be late by 20 minutes to fly out. Ok, 40 minutes transfer, I can handle that. Then we were told that we would leave 45 minutes late, because the plane got in later than expected. Hmm... not so good, but possibly manageable if they're not so strict on gate closing times. We could see people getting off the plane, or rather them not getting off the plane for a good half hour and then a school class blocking the corridor. In the end, we finally boarded and my precious transfer time had melted to nothingness, with a bitter note of "If I get stuck in London, I won't even be able to call anyone because my mobile's dead".

In the end, we were all boarded and got told by the captain "we're all set and good to go, alas we missed our taxi slot so we have to wait until 20:44 (precisely, and the flight had originally been scheduled for 19:15)". However, hope returned with flying colours when the actual flight from Paris to London only took half an hour, so suddenly I could have made it again! Especially since there was a good chance of my outbound plane also being delayed, seeing how all planes were delayed in the morning and it was all a huge knock-on effect (which is still rather unimpressive). And then there was the circling. We circled over London, and circled some more and I really learned to hate the view the 5th time round until we got told we would land at 20:35 (local time) - the exact time my other flight was scheduled for take off. We landed so late. An hour. And 48 f*cking minutes.

So, damage control. We got into T5 in Heathrow, home to British Airways who took full responsibility for being so late but were unfortunately unable to help me in any shape way or form because my connecting flight was with BMI. Where does BMI live? In T1, which is as good as on the other side of the country. T5 is already huge, so it takes hours to get from anywhere to anywhere else, you have to take a shuttle bus to the other terminals (which, at this time of night, weren't exactly frequent) and from T5 to T1 it took me a total of no less than 45 minutes.

Terminal 1 was deserted. The only people around were disoriented passengers on the way to Cork and cleaning personnel - and me. Somehow, everyone else on the flight I had been on was going to Buenos Aires or Hong Kong or something, so they got taken care of in T5 already. I was really all alone, which was not a good feeling. So I spoke to random security and cleaning people, who all had different ideas of where exactly BMI lives, because, you see, T1 is undergoing major reconstruction. More of that later.

Eventually, after 3 security checks, an iris scan and a liquids control ("'scuse me ma'am, did you buy that shampoo yourself?"), I found BMI. Except there was no one there. The security folk next door told me that they should still be there, but had obviously already gone home, but no worries, they'd open again at 5am tomorrow morning. So I was stuck, well and truly stuck. There was nowhere to go, I didn't have anyone's number (except the flat to tell my flatmate I wasn't coming home tonight), the shops were all closed so I couldn't have dinner and to round things off, there was the happy merry little crowd of more or less Eastern european construction workers, who used the wee hours to get some serious work done. Trying to catch some sleep on a meter long stretch of alreadly uncomfortable bench, with lights directly in my face and workers drilling holes into walls and my head is one of the worst things I've done in a long time.

But Murphy wasn't done yet. At 3am, I woke up, feeling a bit queezy but blamed it on my odd sleeping position and the light (note the logic of the sleep deprived). Half an hour later, I barely made it to the toilet to empty my nonexistent stomach contents and from then until 7am, I was sick in a scarily regular pattern of every half hour. At first I tried to calm my stomach with tea, but it was all no use. So. Either I got food poisoning from the chicken wrap that we got on the flight over to London, or it was the cleaning detergents in T1, which was this highly aggressive stuff that stung in your nostrils and which I don't think they diluted properly.

Either way, I was thoroughly miserable, felt about as bad as I have in a long time, with a nice side of fever to top it all off. Eventually, BMI people appeared and I asked them to get me the hell home, asap. They did, after charging me rebooking fees which were more than the actual ticket and which I'm not amused by in hindsight, but when I was lying on the woman's desk and feeling like I was about to die, I couldn't have cared less. So eventually, I got on the plane to Aberdeen, which was also delayed. However, as soon as I was on that plane, I stopped being sick and the soothing sound of well running engines send me off dozing within minutes.

Got a taxi home, told a friend that I was supposed to have dinner with that I was not up for anything involving food ever again and started feeling a bit more human again. Said friend came around by surprise later and brought me tea, which my stomach accepted and I've even had solid food since and I'm now feeling much much better, just quite tired still.

So there we go, that's me, tomorrow I have to sort out bits and pieces like my godforsaken taxes and then I'm off to Japan on Saturday. I have no idea how often I'll have access to the internet while there, I'll try and keep this thing updated when I get a chance. I'm also taking my mobile (with the charger this time) but that's just for emergencies so don't expect me to be accessible. For now - bedtime!