Nigerian mission
A few years ago, i was sent to Nigeria to work for a large American company on a 6-week secondment. I was young and thought it would be a laugh and it was, sometimes. Anyway, i digress. The night before my flight was my sister's birthday. Cue night at School Disco in Hammersmith. Got home at 04:30. Taxi for the airport arrives at 06:00. Augh. Felt like crap at the airport so bought a coffee, despite there being a chemists crammed to the rafter with all sorts of drugs that would have seen me right. I was too hungover to think about it. Flew via Amsterdam to Lagos and realised that this was going to be bad when 400 Nigerians bolted for the plane as soon as we were allowed to board. I stayed sat down knowing my seat wasn't going to be taken. It wasn't, but all the overhead compartments were crammed with huge bags, tellys, all sorts so I had to sit with all my duty free and hand luggage. Hmmpf. Arrived in Lagos and, after a frankly rich attempt to check my passport, met up with my driver. I was with another employee at this time. He was about 45-50 and kept telling me all about the 'lovely Nigerian girls' until we got to the halfway house. The next morning I flew to Port Harcourt (scene of a recent plane crash - nice) in a turbo prop plane that wasn't fit to transport cattle. All-but crash landed at Port Harcourt in heavy rain and was left standing next to my bag on the tarmac whilst the plane buggered off again. Locals started sizing me up until a small excitable Nigerian man scuttled up to me and led me off to his car. Luckily he was the person I wanted to meet. Not so luckily, when i was dropped straight to work, I left my suitcase in his boot. Rats cocks. Eventually got my case back, sat at a desk in a smelly foreign country after 4 hours of sleep in 72 hours. That was a great journey.
( Fray Brentos *mega-belms*, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 16:41, Reply)