A fish out of water

 So as most people will know I spend most of my time in or near water but this summer I have decided to embark on an adventure to a land locked country! 

The idea of traveling to Uzbekistan was first put into my head by one of my students.  She was following some Instagram accounts about the country that looked absolutely incredible.  I started to follow these same pages and kept looking and kept liking.  I ummed and arred for ages and then unfortunately we lost one of the members of our swimming family, she was young like me and had everything to live for.  The day of her funeral I went and paid my respects and that very next day booked the trip.

I found flights from London which happened to tie in with my trip back 'home'.  After 10days in the UK, 2 weddings , 3 camping trips and some new ink I was ready for my adventure.  I did some last minute shopping then was ready to board the 4am national express to Luton.  Very early for a 13h flight but 30£ cheaper, and as you know I'm all about saving the pennies! 

My bus was early into Victoria and I managed to catch an early bus to Luton.  Sailed through security and went and found myself a place to get my head down for a while.

After a couple of hours down time, I checked my flight details, the flight time had already been changed by 10 mins making my connection in Izmir boarderline.  The flight had been delayed by more time, I received an email from kiwi travel saying it was impossible for me to make my connection, here were my options!!!

As you can imagine I freaked out a little, I read and reread the email and looked at my options.... Non of them were real options!  So I took matters into my own hands and re checked flights leaving from the UK to Uzbekistan.  My original flight was Luton to Izmir, Izmir to Samarcanda.  Skyscanner came up trumps ...Gatwick to Antalya, Antalya to Tashkent.  The only downside was the 14hr stop over in Antalya.  

I thought about it, I checked to see if I could get from Luton to Gatwick, I checked if I could change my accommodation, I checked about canceling my train I already had booked.... Basically I checked everything!! 

Conclusion was it could be done, I tried to phone kiwi no answer! YOLO as they say so I booked the new flight.  Exiting departures not on a plane I think is always a sad thing but hey I had no time to waste, so i got my boarding card cancelled amd escorted out of departures.

I had already checked there was a train to Gatwick in 20mins ...I located the ticket office, bought the ticket, caught the dart to the train station and boarded the train for Gatwick! 

The journey was spent making new arrangements, cancelling the ones previously made in Samarcanda.  All done with out a problem.

Arrived at Gatwick, had already managed to check in online even though my flight was in under 6hrs.  Checked on the departures board..flight info at 16.25...ummm interesting my flight was due to leave at 16.20! There was no other information, no one I could speak to.  I checked flight tracker all on time ! I was a bit confused and thought that this trip really wasn't supposed to happen.

Anyhow I waited and waited tried to find someone to ask, to no avail so I waited some more.  Eventually we had a gate number, but we wouldn't be boarding for at least an hour! The hour ticked over no news of boarding, a tannoy announcement confirmed a gate change, not our gate! It really felt like we were in a circus with no ring leader! 

Finally boarding commenced...I was actually first on the plane as was in the cheap seats 😂....i thought quick shut the doors lets go! 

After a while the doors were locked and we were ready to go, but did we go anywhere..no!!! Some problem with Croatian air space.  We were sat on the plane for another hour before we had a slot confirmed and we were finally in the air! 

I have to say the flight must have been the noisiest I have ever been on..loads of babies crying, children screaming and general loud chit chat! But who can complain after a very long day I was finally in the air making my way forward!