Terminal Etudia

I absolutely have to tell you about the Warsaw Airport Departure Terminal! If you are flying on a budget airline you pass by the rather elegant Terminals 1 and 2 and fetch up at Terminal Etudia. Terminal Etudia is a tin shed. It is, honestly. It’s a tin shed. The website says that it’s services are rudimentary and that therefore the airport taxes are lower.

Rudimentary? It’s facilities are non-existent!!!!

I arrived there just under an hour before check-in opened. And found Mike the academic, Mike the administrator and Jackie his wife already there looking a bit glum. There was nowhere to sit and nothing much to do while we waited. Mike the academic found a “bar” next door. The bar consisted of loads of outside tables under huge sun umbrellas (in this case sheltering the tables from the rain). Your choice of beverage appeared to be beer or coke. I had beer!

We went back inside the terminal at the time check-in opened. The queue was for all flights. It snaked around and around and around and out the door. In the rain!

It was a bit despairing, really. I fancied that there was no chance at all that we would get to the check-in desk before the flight left.

Actually, it took just over half an hour.

Then we went airside.

I had intended to buy some biscuits and sweets and souvenir-y things at the airport. Easier than buying them in town and carting them about with me.

A cunning plan.

Except – there are no shops airside at Terminal Etudia. Not one. Well, apart from a stall selling not very nice sandwiches. Not a biscuit or a sweetie in sight. So therefore no presents for anyone. Sorry :-(

Also not very many chairs for sitting on. We managed to get four together pretty much by pushing past everyone and making a grab for four right at the back, which had been protected from everyone else by someone’s suitcase and a push chair blocking the path. We simply asked for these impediments to be moved!

Wizzair, on the other hand, is a nice little airline. It’s based in Hungary. I had nothing to read (no magazine shop selling English language papers in the terminal) so amused myself by watching some of Hogfather on my Mac. I’ve started watching it several times and always drift off to sleep. Don’t know why; it’s quite a fun film. I have got further into it now. Didn’t stop watching because I fell asleep but because the flight back to London is not quite two hours, so there was really only an hour available for using the laptop.

Mike the administrator and Jackie his wife brought me back to Chesterfield. Mike absolutely hurtled up the M1. I sent The Builder a text message as we passed exit 28 to say that’s where we were. He left the house more or less immediately. We got to exist 29, came off and drove the 3 miles to Frankie and Bennies restaurant, where I was to meet The Builder. He left our place and drove the 3 miles to Frankie and Bennies. And we beat him in . Only just, but we did get there first. Hurtling, that’s what Mike was doing!

A late supper in Frankie and Bennies.

The Builder was at work yesterday. I was not. Or not at work in the Adsetts Centre. Instead I ironed and washed and peeled a million potatoes and prepped them for frozen roasties or frozen chips. I also swept and washed the kitchen floor, though I have no idea why. It’s raining again and no sooner had I done it than it was muddy again. On the other hand, it was absolutely spectacularly muddy after I’d finished sorting through the Arran Victory potatoes, so something had to be done!

I begin to think I am carrying around my very own, personal rain cloud. Everywhere I’ve been for the past few weeks it’s been wet and cold (except for when Ian came with his personal sun burst). The Builder reports that the weather in Chesterfield was magnificent while I was away. The locals in Warsaw were aghast by the state of the weather while I was there.