You know that general assumption that airports couldn’t get any more stressful?

It probably doesn’t help that I am consistently a ‘get drunk the night before flying’ kind of guy. Why would the Covid era be any different?

But we are getting off topic. So the process is suddenly much slower. Everything is slow. To be fair, it was always slow but now it appears to be even slower. Hashtag slow.

My first flight is to Madrid and I thought as it’s a domestic flight I might be able to bring water through security. Wrong.

But there was nowhere to pour it away and as it was in my ol reliable (no chance of me throwing him away) I took on the challenge of chugging half a litre of water as quickly as possible. In the end I wasn’t very quick and therefore made the process even slower.

What else... in the queue to get boarding passes there were 3 lines but only 2 check-in desks and my line wasn’t getting a sniff. I must have seen 3 people/groups from each of the other 2 lines get seen to before the person at the front of my line got their chance.

By which time I had joined one of the other lines. I think my joining one of the other lines inspired my original line to take less shit from the other lines as they started stepping forward more regularly after this point.

Naturally I was happy to see that my actions had inspired positive change but at the same time I was a little frustrated as I moved lines to speed up my own personal process and this response wasn’t helping.

I’m also pretty sure I’m wearing my mask wrong as it’s a new mask and other people in the airport with a similar mask seem to be wearing it differently.

We are boarding! More updates from Madrid where I have a 3 hour layover and will no doubt have more tales to tell. This thread does not end here.

Just landed in Madrid. Social distancing impossible on a full plane but this is life now; everyone aboard fully aware of the risks. Picture of the plane as it was one of the smaller ones I’ve been on in my time.

Picture of my mask because perhaps someone can tell me if I’m wearing it correctly. I think I might be you know.

On the plane everything was pretty normal: everyone having masks on at all times being the obvious exception. I essentially followed my usual routine which is to talk to no one and try to breathe as little as possible.

Might have to delete this thread because earlier I described myself as a ‘get drunk the night before flying’ kind of guy. Alternatively I might make it my new bio.

At least now you know what you get.