Travel Light

This is the third time I’m flying home since I came to Britain. If not for my cheapskate-ness, I would have travelled more comfortably every time. Hell I always had to take the coach (7-hour long drive!) to London Gatwick airport. Considering that it only takes me, what, 2 hours from London to Vienna. I just never get to find flights at a reasonable price from Leeds-Bradford airport to Vienna. And whenever I do, it’d be a 14-hour long flight with 2 stopovers. Sick!

Watching “Up in the Air” a few days ago did me good. George Clooney’s character in the movie referred to Asians as light and efficient packers (though this might not be true for most Pinoys). Ergo, I’m out to prove him damn right. It wasn’t easy. I woke up 5-ish this morning to pack up all the things that I thought I could fit into my backpack. Make no mistake, they didn’t fit alright. It was the “survival of the fittest” as I start to take the only pair of jeans I wanted to bring, my shoulder pouch, my flip-flops, and my humongous wallet out of the bag. Ok so who survived? Basically my laptop, chargers, lunch box (with grapes!!), lecture notes, and a few items of clothing did survive. Then off I went to the coach station.

Today’s itinerary:

7:10 – 12:25 (Bradford to London Victoria, coach)

13:00 – 14:25 (London Victoria to London Gatwick, coach)

16:55 (London Gatwick to Vienna, plane)

I’m always right on schedule, but there were 2 things I failed to anticipate this time: the heavy downpour that started an hour before we even reach Victoria and the traffic jam (it’s either due to the rain or it’s just normal London city traffic). We were 30 minutes off schedule and I almost missed my coach to the airport. I got on the coach barely 2 minutes before 13:00. Not bad. The best thing was that I didn’t need to check-in any luggage and I’ve already printed out my boarding pass in advance. And the coolest thing in airports now is that you just need to scan the barcode of the boarding pass to get in to the departure area. No more queue hassles.

My ideal “travel light” would be me travelling with just my phone and Visa card. :p