Day 12 – Marrakech to Plymouth
The last couple of days having got to me, and stuff and life and headachhes and not enough water meant that I was awake at 2.16am and never properly got back to sleep. Tried a number of ways, different positions, turning upside down on the bed, propping myself into a chair with a blanket, couldn’t get comfy, couldn’t relax, couldn’t shake the headache. Also the very bright blue LED display of the reverse cycle was driving me a little crazy, very bright and unrelenting. I think in that state most things were going to drive me a bit wacky. In one of these insomniac moments checking email I received my graduation confirmation, so that’s official now. Didn’t relax me enough to sleep though.
Eventually got 20 minutes after L had moken up, as I’d also tried not to disturb her, it’s hard to say if those minutes helped. Eventually carted myself down for breakfast, lots of tea, some wonderful french toast they made especially for me. Was touched in my semi-incomprehensible state.
Driver came, took us to the airport. A couple of observations: Marrakech is less crazy to drive at 9.30am; the public benches in new town are like chaise-longes in look.
Loaded my backpack onto a trolley at the airport — I had to, they call them chariots. Had to wait a while before the screens showed where our flight check-in counters were. Checked in, about 500g in total under our allowed baggage for two, then all fine through customs and into the wonderful land of transit. Checked out the duty free, nothing completely special there, before having a coffee with lots of sugar, by now feeling like half a zombie — an improvement. Finally found the holy grail — a moroccan snow dome for the collection. We were getting worried that we hadn’t seen any in our travels: a country without a snow dome is in more trouble than a country without a beer I think.
Flying easyJet, which was a new experience. They have an option called Speedy Booking, which means you get to be at the front of the queue for check in and boarding. They don’t actually bother about the whole allocating seats thing, first one on the plane gets their seat. They’re also pretty fast to get in and get out, so at around the time the boarding was due to start the plane hadn’t landed. At this stage there hadn’t even been an announcement as to which gate we should queue at. Fortunately L and I were standing pretty close to the right gate when the plane landed, so we jumed to the front of the queue, hoping it was the rightt one. It was, so we managed to get the front row. And the plane wasn’t completely full, so we had the 3 seat row to ourselves. Once we were up, I queued some Clouds on my iPod and let the wonderful harmonies accompany me through some rather unrestful and embarrassing sleep — I’m informed I was a little noisy. Still, bagged an extra hour or so.
Landed at Gatwick, in the rain. Got off the plane easily (the joy of the front) and then did the long waalk until we got to customs. I shuffled off to the UK/EU arrivals lane, while L joined the “Aliens” queue. As my passport is all new fandangled and chippeed, I didn’t even have to speak to anyone, just line up, put the passport on the scanner device, when the door opens stand on the yellow dot and have my face scanned. The next door opened and I was through. A pretty spiffy science fiction moment. Once through, I was amused that the largest queue was that for the scanners, hardly anyone of the UK/EU without chips, and a moderate queue for the aliens. That queue ended up moving quickly as there were lots of booths being under-used.
Then we grabbed our bags and headed for the rental cars. We’ve scored a totally new VW Tig-somethingorother, an SUV type thing, not quite the small car we booked but it’s all good. Got a GPS so we shouldn’t get lost — the joy of the UK postal system is that a postcode pretty much points to the front door of a house, just put in the 6 digits and we’re on our way.
Also picked up an extra traveller for the next few days, L’s cousin. He’s a language whizz and is in the midst of going all over the place, Spain, Ireland, not sure where else it’s pretty hard to keep up.
The rain eased as we got out of London, and L drove us out to Plymouth. We were learning stuff all the way, how the lights and windscreen wipers came on automatically, what exactly the GPS means when it gives instructions, and what did all the weird new buttons do. There was a quick stop for essentials, Irn Bru, water, gluten free goodies, chocolate.
Good thing I’m not a pagan, wiccan or similar. It turns out we drove right past Stonehenge, without noticing, on the night after midwinter. Kind of funny really. It wasn’t right past Stonehenge, as we wouldn’t have been able to see it from the road in the dark, but it was only about a mile away. Missed it by a Maxwell Smart.
Arrived at Plymouth in good time, Francis Drake’s old stomping ground, and found our way to L’s great aunt’s place. She’s in a nice looking housing development in the old Naval Hospital grounds, now being sold off as kind of like a bunch of community apartments. A two ro three bedroom place, our digs are in a sitting room-study-lounge romm with a semi-ensuite toilet and sink. A bit weird to describe really, as you’d probably expect from a several-times converted old building. We met great aunt J, and her neighbour D, together they’re as thick as thieves, a septugenarian Thelma and Louise, mischief makers to the core. Said our hellos, had a cup of tea, then hit the bed.