I don't really do holidays. My idea of the perfect holiday is to arrive at the hotel, be put to sleep by the gas that knocks Patrick McGoohan out at the start of The Prisoner, sleep for thirty-six hours straight and spend the next week lying in the sun getting less groggy. I don't think Kirker do that.
What I really can't do is the flights. Now, there's a huge difference between travelling on business and travelling on your own dime. On business, if anything goes wrong, you just make other arrangements and expense it. I have done that a few times. Also, you tend to travel on flexible tickets, so it doesn't matter if you miss the flight. On your own dime, that flexibility runs to, what, maybe half your monthly disposable income? Plus, holiday destinations usually don't have five or six flights a day like Paris or Berlin.
Which means that the most stressful part is getting to the airport. If anything goes wrong, you're stuck at the airport with nowhere to go for a long while and that's assuming there's a spare seat on the next plane. Plus you're out the fare. Travel insurance might cover that, but it can't get you a seat on a full plane or fly a plane on Wednesday when the next flight is Saturday.
You can't forget anything either. You can just make it through a normal working day if you forget your wallet or entry card or train ticket. Then you have to turn back. But you can turn back. Forget your passport, check-in card, itinerary, taxi reservation, driver's licence, credit cards... and you can't get through the airport. You might just bluff your way without the credit card by calling your bank at the other end, but if you fail, you're not going to be eating for the trip. Do you have any idea how often I check that I have these things? When I pack. An hour after I pack. In the taxi, witing for the train, in the departure lounge. It's as if I do not at that point believe in the permemance of objects: paperwork can vanish, just on its own. Even if you never opened the case.
Which is followed by the bit where you go through the airport. My airport experience has been getting better, but only because 1) I check-in online, and 2) I don't carry a large suitcase anymore. All that security theatre doesn't take up as much time as I keep thinking it might. European flights are manageable.
So now we're inside. And there's the bit where your plane is delayed on the inward journey, and the bit where you queue to get on the plane. To walk down a zig-zag chute to take a bus to a plane parked in a far distant corner of the airport. And the pilot tells you there isn't a runway slot for half-an-hour. And the child cries or yells for two hours straight, or the asshole in front of you slams their seat back into recline before the seat belt sign has even faded. I'm tall-ish, I have long legs, and a thirty-two inch seat pitch is too short for you to recline and me to feel comfortable.
On arrival there's the question of the weather. A country that used to be known for unbroken sunshine and gentle breezes has a week of gales and showers, weather they have not seen since old Uncle Jose married Aunt Maria, and that was before television. Yeah. Right. Everywhere I've been, they haven't seen weather like that since Uncle Jose married Aunt Maria. I'm the Wolfgang Pauli of weather?
And then, finally, I'm there and unpacked. And there's me. And a place I don't know, where I know no-one. For a week. I still haven't worked out exactly what state of mind I'm in when I do that. Some of it is a presence-in-the-place, and some of it is denial-that-this-is-all-there-is. Because where I really am is with-me-in-a-different-place. And that's only half a holiday.
The other half is where you get to be someone else for a week.
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