Relaxing in the hotel pre-flight

I fly out to Biarritz tomorrow at 12:15 from London Stansted, I looked at the price of trains from Birmingham to London and they were a lot higher than I expected. I then decided to check to see how much it would cost to stay in a hotel instead and it worked out a few pounds cheaper. I decided that this was the best option as it means that I do not have to mess about with trains in the morning and I can just make my way over to the airport without all the stress of getting a train and then the tube.

My lovely mother agreed to drive me to London and my dad came along for the ride too. I realised today that I will be without football for 4-6 weeks, meaning I will miss all of Tottenham's games so I am hoping I will come back to us being 4th in the league and Arsenal in the bottom half. So my we left in the car about 12:30pm and listened to our game on the radio, which makes me a lot more nervous than watching it on tv. We sounded great, but I am not hear to talk about football so I will say no more. We hit Stanstead at about 2:30pm and we stopped at the Mc Donalds for some lunch. I was not expecting the hotel to be so far from the airport, it is walkable but there is not a great deal around here. We ate lunch and then said our goodbyes. I actually got slightly choked up which I was not expecting and there was a massive knot in my stomach, a feeling I have never felt before; the realisation that I am going to miss my parents a great deal and that I take them for granted hit me quite hard. It is easy to take loved ones for granted when they are always there for you and providing for you, I guess that is why I feel slightly unprepared for life after Uni as my parents have supported me so well. I feel that this trip will do me the world of good but it is going to be harder being away from home than I first expected.

So we said goodbye and then I walked to the garage over the road from the hotel and bought a copy of 'National Geographic' as I realised that I had all afternoon and night to kill before bed and very little to do. Upon going into the hotel I realised that they had the football on, result! I watched the last ten minutes and got to see our 4th goal (ended 4-0, Tottenham's goodbye to me) and I got to see the highlights too. I then figured that I should check out my room and I was plesantly surprised, it is great. Funny thing is that I couldn't get any of the lights to work and had to call the front desk. Apparently, the guy spoke to me as if I was stupid it was as if he had known me for years, I had to put my room key into some slot by the door to make all the lights work. I had already been to the toilet in the dark but now I was set.

So then I went back down to watch the Manchester United vs Chelsea game, limiting myself to one pint a half. When I got up for my 2nd pint someone had stolen my chair so I asked a guy near the tv if I could join him. We actually seemed to hit it off, football brings everyone together, his name was 'Al' and he was probably about late 30's early 40's and we discussed football and what we do etc. A large part of this trip and why I wanted to do it alone is because I want to be more outgoing and confident, I felt that this was a good start and set me in good stead for making friends along the Camino. Unfortunately this has meant that I stayed downstairs longer and had a few more pints than I was going to, but it's all good.

So my time is running out on this machine. Off to watch more of the football as Real Madrid are on now. I am considering going to the garage to get a sandwich as the price of the food here is insane (£17 for an 8oz steak, £3.60 a pint). I think Al is coming back down for some grub so I may join him as he seems a nice bloke.

Rambled a fair bit for what was just a quick check in, and seemingly talked about absolutely nothing of great importance. So I will hopefully check in again tomorrow when I get to St. Jean or the day after at the worst.

I hope you are all well.

Adios.