I flew from Gatwick which for those who don’t know is probably the worlds most inaccessible airport for anyone who lives outside Crawley, after that one half way up a mountain in the Himalayas. I was connecting through Budapest and as the transfer time was only 35 minutes I knew I wouldn’t make it, but the price was good.
I didn’t make it.
3 hours after arriving in the Hungarian capital I was heading for Kiev along with 2 other Brits who I decided not to befriend due to a recent bad experience befriending.
The flight to Kiev was on one of those small ‘bullet’ planes made by Embraer which I have only seen on internal flights in Ukraine. It was interesting though because for some reason I got upgraded to Business Class and I was the only passenger in that section. I could feel the disapproving stares of fellow Brits (both of them) as I was handed a drink, even before we had taken off. Very posh but not really my scene. I’m rabble after all and we rabble like to travel rabble class, it's our home.
Once in Kiev I only had 75 minutes before my Odessa flight departed and as the ‘VISA’ queue was ridiculously long I chanced my arm in the much smaller ‘UKRAINIAN CITIZEN’ queue. I have done that before. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t and when it doesn’t one gets a telling off and sent to the back of the class …. or in this situation to the back of the ‘VISA’ queue.
It worked but I had to lie and I told the Immigration Officer that “I got sent to this queue because I was about to miss my next flight and the man over there told me to come here as I don’t want to miss another flight because at this rate it will take me four days to get to Odessa and if I’m really lucky if I arrive there in time to catch my flight home and the lady I am meeting lives in Nikolaev and she's already left for Odessa and she don’t speak much Ponglisky and I’m not looking forward to telling her that for a second time today I have missed a flight and although I look like an idiot I am not really”.
He looked at me, looked at my passport, looked at me again, stamped my passport and wished me “Bon Voyage” which I thought in the circumstances was kind of cute, especially as I was sure he wasn’t French.
I grabbed my luggage, had a leisurely smoke then sprinted to Terminal A, queued up at check-in only to be told “there is a big delay to the Odessa flight”. “How big is big?” I asked. She replied “about 3 hours big” which was worrying because in Ukrainian that could mean 3 days. “Thanks” I said as my two Brit un-friends came running up to check-in. I guess they had stayed in the 'VISA' queue and hadn’t had time for a smoke, unlucky.
Armed with my 70 griefnotes ($9) food allowance I decided to party at Dniproavia's expense.
