Woops!

Munich 2011.

Another mad dash for the airport (this is becoming the norm and it needs to stop!) following a late finish last night. Didn't go out until 10:30pm, which timed in perfectly with our work visitors' finishing their evening meal in a restaurant just up the road from me. It was pouring down with rain, so I took them to one of my favourite late-night / on-the-way-home haunts, just across the road, which wasn't too busy and so perfect for a large group of people. One G&T turned into about seven or eight, and it was 2am before I realised.

Anyway - I hadn't packed before going out, for one reason and another and so I decided to set my alarm for extra early and do it before leaving. Except my phone didn't make it back onto charge and it either died before the alarm went off, or I switched it off and then it died. So when my eyes peeled open at 7:02, I cursed and set about throwing on some clothes, throwing my stuff together and throwing myself into a taxi by 7:40, leaving my flat in a bit of a state, washing up to be done and bed unmade etc - not my usual style! I promptly walked smack into a concrete bollard at the airport, as I scanned the area for a bin in which to deposit my banana skin (that was my breakfast) and bashed my knee a corker. Another curse and note to self not to be so disorganised when it comes to catching a flight and I then fought my way to check in (had checked in but no boarding pass on iPhone and needed to check stuff in anyway) so cunningly used my expired frequent flyer card to get into the business class check-in queue and then smiled sweetly / desperately at the security control point to let me bypass the long snake of passengers waiting to be x-rayed and so got through the much smaller and faster-moving business queue. That bought me time to grab some adaptors at a shop (having not charged my cameras either...! and forgotten to pack one) before getting on the plane, which was boarding when I got to the gate.

So I was pleased to be arriving a couple of hours before the others who were coming in from Heathrow, which allowed me a chance to check in, shower, change and get myself organised before they pitched up at the hotel, shaking their heads in disbelief at my catching the flight by the skin of my teeth. Again.

Bier o'clock it was and we got ourselves sat down under a large umbrella in a beer garden (across the road from where Oktoberfest is held and just next to the hotel I stayed in the last time I was here), just before the heavens opened and the thunder roared. We were there a while!

Letty scabbed off to meet a German friend for supper, while Stu, J, Linds and I went to a LP recommended Italian that did exactly what it said on the tin. Perfect!