Travel Day

Well, I'm now sat in Rothwell, West Yorkshire, UK connected to luxurious broaband internet having consumed multiple cups of tea with REAL MILK!

It's been a long day but I'm finally home in England starting to contemplate the next five weeks without BCS.

Travel was a mixed bag. Yesterday's trip into Dakar was a long one, traffic was horrible and I got sunburn on my right arm from the sun coming through the open car window (my brother informs me it's known as 'trukker's arm'). When we finally arrived in Dakar it was nearly three o'clock and we were pretty hungry so we went for some food. A handy hint: when eating out with girls who are ordering big plates there is no need to buy one's own food, I couldn't finish all the leftovers I was offered.

Having tried and failed to fall asleep in front of a movie at the WEC guesthouse Lesley and I departed at 6:30 in a taxi to the airport. Departures at Dakar airport was new for me, although much less scary than arrivals had been ten months previously. We fought off people wanting to get us trolleys and carry our luggage and change our money and managed to check in quickly and easily despite technical problems with the link between the luggage scales and the luggage tag printing doodah (overcome using a walkie-talkie).

Free of our bags we retired upstairs to the restaurant where we decided we weren't hungry yet and shared a large bottle of mineral water over conversation themed with summer activities and reunions with friends and family.

Duty free shopping at Dakar airport is surprisingly (or maybe not so) like any other place in the world. The only difference being that the large perfume and alcohol shops are neighboured by small boutiques crammed full of every Senegalese craft item available on the streets of Dakar; dresses, shoes, drums, silverware, paintings, t-shirts, sculpture, the usual.

As we awaited boarding some suspicious looking Brits crept up behind us trying to frighten us. We thought we'd left Ruth and Tracey behind at the guesthouse but here they were, ready to check into their flight leaving an hour later. It sounded like they'd had an interesting taxi ride to the airport but we had all made it and were ready to leave the ground.

The flight was quite a good one, we made good time and had no disturbances. They fed us a main meal at about 11:00 GMT and breakfast at about 3:00 GMT, by which time we were nearly in Brussels. I joined Lesley after breakfast to enquire if she'd had any sleep and whether she'd been sick yet (she wasn't feeling too well) and we landed in Brussels shortly afterwards at 5:30 local time (GMT+2).

Brussels airport is nice and not too big. We killed some time walking the length of the terminal (a long straight building with departure/arrival gates along the edges), at the end of which was a beautiful view of the sunrise over some trees and a church spire (and a monstrous control tower).

We parted here as I continued on to Gatwick and Lesley caught a connecting flight to Brum.

The Gatwick flight also gave me breakfast to my surprise. In fact I was one of only two economy passengers served a complementary breakfast; the perks of a long journey I guess.

In a slight daze and trying to work out whether I needed my jumper, I eventually made it through gatwick airport to collect my bags and meet Mum at the arrivals point.

From there it was on to Ipswich to drop in on my granny recovering from a hip operation in hospital and then the long drive back to Leeds.

I slept for only an hour or so in the car. Waking up and wondering if I'd dreamt my year at BCS and realising that I was doing the classic gap-year returnee trick of talking continuosly at my mum about things she knew nothing about and meant nothing to her. It was good to get that out of the system a bit before I bore friends to death when we meet. It'll still be hard though.

Must go to bed now, I'll try and cover the emotional side of reentry in a few days time 'cos I need to gather my thoughts a bit or I'll ramble forever and say nothing worth reading.