Lost and Found

The past hundred hours of my life have not been dull, let's just say...


I decided to mosey on down to Gibraltar for a long weekend to go visit EnglishBloke and ended up being fucked up beyond repair for most of it, in an assorted amount of ways.  However, the escape from the bitter cold weather of Derry felt so good on my skin.  I felt like a vampire when I felt the sun upon my skin for the first time in about a month.  


Gibraltar is an interesting place in the world.  For those who know nothing of such a city, here is a tid bit of geography for your asses.  Gibraltar is essentially a summer paradise type of place on the southern coast of Spain.  However, it is actually part of the UK and has a fuck-ton of history dating back to God-knows-when.  The entire city is located around an infamous rock.  This rock is pretty fucking cool.  Little apes live there. There are palm trees and sunshine for most of the day until it starts to rain on and off every twenty minutes.  


EnglishBloke brought me to a bunch of really great restaurants.  We all know I am always eating, but let's just take a moment for the scrumptious food that I ingested...


Let's start with the brandy-soaked chorizo on the first evening when I arrived... It can only be described as a happy-ending in my mouth.  We ate the freshest fish on my last night there, as well. I know we had an English breakfast in there somewhere as well. There was also a dish of pear and ricotta ravioli with the creamiest parmesan sauce I have ever experienced.  I mean,  I made that shit my bitch...


The entire trip opened my eyes just a little bit more with understanding how people in Europe live.  Gibraltar has a Spanish town bordering it so there is a lot of Spanish speakers within the town, but most of them are English, like I said, because it is part of the UK.  I had only seen those kissy-kissy European greetings in movies.  I mean, I knew it existed in the real world but, really, how many Europeans have I met before this year? 


When at the top of the rock, one can see Morrocco off in the distance and other parts of Spain.  When the fog cleared up on the rock, I finally got to see the Mediterranean Sea for the first time in my life.  The world is so fucking amazing.  Why is it so expensive to see all of it.  It should be free.  We are all people of the world, no?  ---Wow that sounded like the most brainless statement I may have ever made.


Let's get to the real meat of this adventure.  


The skies decided to barf rain when I need to take my flight from Gibraltar to London-Luton Airport.  Monarch Airlines decided that it was safer to leave from Malaga Airport an hour and a half away into Spain.  So from Gib Airport, all the passengers pile into three buses.  For some reason we did not move for a half hour and when we finally got moving, we had to get off of the bus five minutes later because the smart-asses at the Spanish border decided they were not going to let a bus through with our luggage inside.  We had to walk in the pouring rain across the Spanish border.  When I say 'we', I mean like about ninety people, most of them were older people.  It was a fucking mess.  Guess who cared if I had luggage or a passport?  No one.  I love the taste of pointless in the morning.  


Somehow, I was the only one getting pissed when we finally got back on the bus and it did not leave for another half an hour.  Normally, I could give two fucks about delays, but when this little lady has a connecting flight in London to Derry that she has already paid for, she wants shit to get rollin'!  I slept most of the way up to Malaga Airport.  However, I did catch glimpses of Spain in the rain and fog.  


When we got to Malaga Airport, not one of the Airport employees knew what to do with us.  So they checked our bags and what-not and I got felt up by a dirty Spaniard going through security.  The plane took off at 4pm.  My flight back to Derry from London-Stansted was set to leave at 4:50pm.  Nothing like missing a flight in a foreign county... alone... when it's fucking cold as balls out.


I did not arrive at the London-Stansted Airport until about 8pm and found that I had to purchase and expensive ticket to Belfast for 7am in the morning.  Like, mother-fucker, I just wanna go back to my flat!!!  Here is where shit hits fans...


I took my journal out of my suitcase when I was in the bathroom because I was going to write in it and ended up leaving it in a stall and did not realize it until about an hour later.  So I ran back to the stall.  Like, of course it wasn't there?  Have I ever been that lucky? 


I broke down crying in the dead-center of the airport. GET IT TOGETHER, DANNY!


The journal was bought for me by my mother.  This journal is a soft, cognac leather-bound book with music notes inked onto it.  It is beautifully hand-crafted from Tuscany and I fucking lost it.  I tucked myself under a pillar, cried for about a minute and then decided to watch the new episode of Dexter and eventually nodded on-and-off for a few hours.  It hit me when I woke up that I had been praying in my sleep that I would find this journal.  Low-and-behold: Lost and Found---is the best thing that ever fucking happened on this night!


I have literally written everything that has happened to me since I arrived in Northern Ireland inside of this book.  Poetry, lyrics, stories, stupid moments, flight schedules, etc...everything that I have thought to be important to me has been jotted down inside of it.  My heart sank into my pancreas when I thought it was lost.  It would only be more embarrassing if somebody had read it and knew it was mine. 


So, now, I sit here in the only open cafe in the airport in London-Stansted Airport with the linger hives that I got on my wrist from panicking.  Missing flights is a scary business.  Especially if you are alone and not in your own damn country.  And, like, no one really wants to help you out, but they will because they get paid to.  But, shit, they are not happy.  I suppose I would hate my life if I had to be at work at 3 am waking up travelers who sleep on the floor.  I was one of those hobos on this night.  I guess I just have to chock it up to a "Put your big girl pants on, Danny" moment.  Focus: Get home alive.


Fuck, man, I need some coffee.