Greetings from Dusseldorf International Airport. I flew here from Newcastle and I've been sitting here at gate A84 almost all afternoon - book in hand, reading Angela's Ashes for as long as it can hold my attention, before looking around and observing other pitiable transit passengers that were unfortunate enough to find themselves sitting somewhere in this building with me.
No, I am by no means unhappy. In fact I am very happy because I'm going home, back to Asia where I'll attend university and I will no longer be stuck in this miserable, cold, wet and highly inefficient country with its horribly unworldly teenagers who have a tendency to do weird things like put yoghurt in the cupboard and think that the little island from which I've come is somehow situated in China.
Anyway, I must have arrived here at about 3.30pm local time. I'm saying this because I stumbled around in my new environment after getting off the plane for what must have been about half an hour before asking two Americans what the time was. They told me it was 4pm in a very grumpy tone (no doubt because they had found themselves in the world's most boring airport) and I promptly reset my watch.
Then I must have spent a while after that wondering if they took pounds in the little coffee shops. They didn't. I then asked someone where the money changer was and I was told by a lady behind a desk that there wasn't a money changer here near the gates, but that there was one right outside before you came through security. Why I wonder would they have one out there but not in here? And why does the wait seem so long? This can't be right. The man at STA said I'd have a two and a half hour wait in both Dusseldorf and Frankfurt. He is clearly wrong and can't do math and should be sacked right away. But then again neither can I or I would have corrected my assumption on that two and a half hour wait. And now I shall starve to death in a German airport because I didn't have the sense to get euros beforehand. Oh well.
So yeah, I carried on reading for pretty much the rest of the day. At some point I looked up and saw this really, really good-looking guy walking my way. Way out of my league. Then again, there's no point in looking unless he is way out of league.
At some other point I stood up and had a little walk around in hope that there was another part of the airport that I had somehow missed and had been left unexplored. There wasn't.
So in the end I took an English newspaper off the free newspaper rack and woefully returned to my previous seat and read the paper. Once that was done I had naught to do but to turn back to the young life of Frank McCourt. But then I got bored again so at some point I decided to take out my laptop and type this up. And right now it's 6.45pm and I've got 45 minutes left to wait.
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