That's What Friends Are For...

Shit, I realise that I'm doing an awful job of keeping my promise to have an update every other day. Thus, I realised that I should blog today as I'm gonna be away for the next week and a half in Venice, Milan and Brussels.... =) I digress...

Ah yes, in our last episode, our heros were left marooned at the London Stanstead Airport no thanks to a series of grotesque and unfortunate events. To once again highlight the absurdity of our situation, we woke up at 245am to catch a 335am bus in order to get on our 715am plane... but nooo, the bus never came and a traffic jam 5 miles off the airport ensured that we only reached the damn place at 750am.

What followed was a maddening 3 hour queue to RE-BOOK our flight at a cost of $120 sing when the original return tickets only cost us 90 sing each. RYANAIR = BLOODSUCKERS

Anyway, when we finally got to the head of the queue, the staff asked us one simple question that princess and myself somehow failed to consider... or rather were considering till we somehow both fell asleep and forgot all about it.

Ryanair staff: "When would you like to fly back to Aarhus?"
Me: "Tomorrow (Tue) or is it possible next Monday?"
Ryanair staff: "Tomorrow will be 40 pounds, next monday will be 47 pounds. Which would you like?"
Me (somewhat stunned): "Deer, what would you like, tomorrow or next Monday? You decide..."
Princess: "Anything lah... you decide! You decide!"
Me: "errr... tomorrow then..."

And so our fate was sealed.

We later asked ourselves profusely why we had not given proper thought to such an important question but failed to come up with any conclusive answers. One of life's mysteries... one that cost us an extended holiday in the UK. Damn.

Anyway, like the entry of this article says, "That's what friends are for", when faced with the gloomy prospect of living like Tom Hanks in an airport overnight, who do you call to get you out of such a rut? My best buddy WSJ!

Upon hearing of our plight, he invited us up to spend the day and night at his place in Cambridge, a short 50 min bus ride from Stanstead airport. he even skipped his lecture (although he hasn't been to the last 20 or so) just to fetch us from the bus stop.

The first class treatment didn't stop there. After we had settled in and gotten a quick meal at the school food hall, he took us on a personal guided tour of cambridge, taking time to explain the historical significance of various landmarks around the town. To top it off, the man even brought us to the river where he punted us down the river in a punt (something like a slim canoe). The art of punting requires one to shove a really long pole into the bed of the canal and push off, thus causing the punt (craft) to move forward. An absolutely tedious activity, and it is not because of the pushing off, rather it is because of the immense amount of concentration and flexing required to keep one's balance (at least for me).

My buddy and me =)

Role reversal

Princess and I try punting

Pick your punter!

The Passenger..errr... I mean the Princess

Exhausted from our packed program, we returned to WSJ's humble abode for a nice afternoon nap while my buddy COOKED UP A STORM FOR US!!! I mean we had veggies, salmon, prawns and chicken (courtesy of Mr Ma - another old pal of mine)

Veggies, salmon & Prawn rice courtesy of The WSJ Kitchen
Huge pot of chicken courtesy of Mr Ma & packet of Chicken Tonight

Fresh prawn... don't play play

Good wine, good food but most importantly good company... Mr Ma on left.

So after a most hectic but memorable and warm 12 hours, we parted company with WSJ and headed back for Stanstead, tired but thoroughly touched. =)