After the wonderful night in the Airport, at 4:45am, I was finally able to check-in and move one step closer to getting away from the damned place which forced the perpetual state of drifting in and out of consciousness with questionable amounts of caffeine and Wallace and Gromit saving the day against the were-rabbit.

The entire process was in fact speedy and painless in terms of checking in, however when it came to going through security, that took far longer.

As mentioned on the previous post, where I was still awake at 2:25 in the morning, I had been chatting to some of the staff onsite at Stanstead and they were telling us of the expensive operation they now had in place in order to deal with the less savoury individuals of the world.

Now I had the chance to experience this first hand, having not been abroad since the trip to Prague some months ago, and Liverpool Airport had next to none of these measures in place.

Even at 5am in the morning, the queues were swelling.

You see, now because they can’t trust anything you have on your person, you have to take it all off. Coats, shoes, belts and in one case with a Frenchman, his trousers. It’s not a nice slight seeing a man walk through a metal detector in his underpants.

Your laptops, if you were lucky enough to have one to kill the boredom of cheap flights to various places, had to be out of their cases and placed separately to go through the special scanning equipment.

Any liquid you had on your person must be placed in clear plastic bags, and then these are randomly tested to ensure you have no napalm where you assured the security staff, it’s just Coke gone slightly off. Some of the lucky few, I have no doubt went to a private room to have themselves searched by a big burly woman called Dave.

After a short period of time enjoying that (not the search…), only the departure lounge was the barrier to freedom. And all the shops are a barrier to keeping hold of your money. If you love the toilet water they sell in those silly bottles, you are in for the time of your life. Beer was consumed en masse, expensive cameras were sold by the bucket full, and the flush in the toilets was broken.

So the whole airport experience while being at Stanstead can be summed up as: Crap.

But enough of that debauchery, let’s move onto while I’m typing here instead of getting overly drunk at the Bavarian bar.

The flight was short and actually quite smooth, smoothest flight I had in quite a long time, and this was a worthy point of interest as I hate flying, just the thought that you’re a few miles up in the air with galleons of explosive fuel and the only way is back down.

Flying is the safest form of travel according to various people and the news, but all the while you are smiling and being fine, ear-raping the person next to you, the only though going through your head is: We’re going to die. It might be safe, but when it goes wrong, it goes very wrong.

And after the flight, that’s when we all met up for the first time, Steve along with two of the bridesmaids had met up with us at the airport to escort us around, get used to the place and also for free chocolate which is a welcome bonus.

The first thing which hit you when leaving the airport is: F**k me, it’s cold. It’s only late September and you would expect things to start cooling a bit but not much. But no, as it stands, it’s warmer back in London. And here’s me with my bathing suit.

Secondly, the resemblance to the architecture in Prague is uncanny, just have a look at the picture of the typical street here:

I swear it’s the same and perhaps it’s what it is like in quite a lot of the eastern European countries like scrovonia, volvonia and all the others (believe it or not at least one of those names came up during a tour of the old town) ending in nia.

Now, after being up for close to 36 hours, you would think it would be a excellent idea to stay in the overly nice Hotel room with some free Wi-Fi and just watch dirty movies from the internet, but nope, that was clearly out of the question as there was a tour scheduled by our Butlins Holiday representative, Steve.

And here is a group picture of everyone on the tour:

Err, ok, it’s not the best group photo you ever expect to see, but it’s as close as I’ve got so far. And as for telling you who some of the people are in the photos, I keep forgetting everyone’s names, I know some people are there from back up Telford, some are Steve’s family and the rest….bugger knows.

The tour guide was the last bridesmaid who as part of school learning, had to give a tour of the town to her teachers and therefore was in a good position to tell all about how many times Estonia has been occupied over the years, by Germans a number of times, then Russians, then some other naughty people, then Russians again or something then finally they are free to do what they want, any old time.

Until someone else comes along.

The tour went through more of the old town, and so did the wealth of knowledge we were gaining every second. Estonians invented marzipan and torture hence why they have museums dedicated to both which is nice, and also the KGB building now lies in ruins, but the basement is still fully populated. Think about that one, and then you’ll need a shower….

We stopped for a cup of tea at a nice place up a cobbled hill, and wandered around to what was initially mistaken for a mini kremlin, just in a different colour:

Turns out it was a church, and speaking of churches, there are many places of worships though it appears these buildings are as packed as the other places of worships, those places are commonly known as “Strip Clubs” or in Estonian: Eroticaa Show.

You see, unbeknownst to the Lord of Leisure, it appears Estonia has become the latest place in Europe to become Club 18-30 and about to be married, hence why many Stag and Hen parties come here. And what do they want when on a stag doo, of course, it’s naked people and booze.

If I have the need to watch bouncy boobs, all I have to do is literally walk downstairs, as there is a strip joint built under the hotel where I’m currently staying.

I can only imagine the jealously of certain people back home right now…. yes you know who you are.

We ended with a litre of booze and some food at a German bar where there were great numbers of staff bored out of their skulls, women dressed as wenches with enormous cleavage and men who were feeling huge shame at wearing lederhosen.

After everyone talked about what was going on etc, we parted ways, Steve and his brother Darren was off for a meal with the parents while everyone else went home.

Everyone except me.

I went to another bar and got drunk on more beer while watching Stargate SG-1 in Finnish with Estonian subtitles. Being the geek I am, I even knew all the way through what was going on, and was explaining to my new best friend what it was all about as he hadn’t seen it before. And we even discussed about being a DJ, which was bizarre but hey ho, it’s a living.

And after collapsing in the hotel room, overly tired and drunk, thus ended the first day out in Europe, one can only wonder what’s next…