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12-05-05; #5 |
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Travel Stories: Part II: Easyjet to Gatwick
By L-J Anjema © Dec 5, 2005
Laurens-Jan Anjema and SquashTalk LLC
A lil’ update of a big trip.
The schedule at the end of the year for all pros playing the biggest tournaments in the world and the ones representing their country all looks the same:
- 20th november till 27th november: the Qatar Classic
- 27th november till 4th december: World Open (Hong Kong)
- 7th december till 14th december: World Team Championships (Islamabad)
- 16th december till 21st december: Saudi Arabia
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| The budget but late Easyjet flight (photo © Easyjet ) |
Basically one month on the road before Christmas: one month of squash balls, hotels and airplane food but all nicely head-to-head to stay positive and some good opportunities to improve your ranking.
The trip started quiet brutally for me as I had to play Dutch League on the Tuesday night in Holland, qualifying for Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and Thursday in Weybridge in London and Bundesliga in Germany on Friday night from where I’d fly to Qatar on Saturday in order to play my first qualifying match in the Qatar Classic on Sunday…
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| The Flexible EasyJet air hostess (photo ©EasyJet) |
One thing that went wrong was the fact that I booked an Easyjet flight from Amsterdam to London on Wednesday morning in order to get to Weybridge before 12 for the start of the qualifying draw.
Easyjet is great. It’s easy, quick and with my friend being an Easyjet pilot for me even cheaper then the already cheap rates. One thing it isn’t always is … reliable.
The rule of the qualifying draw is that you have to be physically present at the time set by PSA (12 0’clock in this case). If you’re not there, it’s over. You’re out. Doesn’t matter where you come from, how far you’ve flown, what excuse...late is late, you’re out and get a zero score.
So I got quite nervous when I saw ‘DELAYED’ flickering on the monitors behind exactly my flight number and destination. The original plan was NOT to stress (as it takes up a lot of energy…) , to arrive at Gatwick (the closest airport to Weybridge) at 10 am, take the bus to the car park where I’d parked my car the previous day and drive to the club calmly and safely, which would only take 40 minutes, in time for the unforgiving deadline of the qualis-draw.
Well, it ended up with the flight being delayed by one hour, with me almost getting in a fight just outside of the plane with the lovely ‘Easyjet-hostess’ who forbade me to speak on the phone with my coach to arrange a ‘Batman and Robin style’ drive-by pick up at Gatwick airport.
“It’s against safety regulations!”, she shouted at me while I was shouting harder at my coach through the phone to get myself heard above the running easyjet engines.
She asked me to step out of the line, checked my passport and boarding pass twice and told me off like I was a schoolboy again.
Come on! As if the signal of my cell is gonna send a Boeing the wrong way…
To cut a long story short, it all ended successfully: the drive-by pick up by my coach went well, we raced to the club, got there 10 minutes before 12, with me feeling like a stressed-out factory-chicken and I qualified for the last big tournament of the year.
‘A lil’ update of a big trip’ to be continued
Laurens Jan Anjema
Sunday 4th december
Somewhere between Hong Kong and Bankok
Laurens
Jan Anjema: Audio Interview |
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