Poisson
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- The Giant Squid
On the return leg of mine and @MattyH's ill advised foray into Eastern Europe, we began talking about coasters in airports. There is one in a few airports but then Gibraltar was mentioned in Discord and so we decided GIB needs a GIB, and we set @JAperson the task of building it. This started us talking about the GIB and how it starred in a quiz too, then we decided to go and ride it. As usual, this was pretty much the extent of how we planned this trip.
On a mild Friday night in 2022, the roar of an abused car signalled the return of an idiot from Sheffield to Cambridge North, to go and collect another idiot, When the journey reached it's end, these idiots then took really good* pictures of trains.
Then we headed for the inevitable Maccies stop near Heathrow, because what else is open at just shy of 2am? We then headed to parking and caught a bus to the terminal. When we arrived after a spirited drive, Matt tried to take a photo of the bus. I don't know why, we can't photo anything to save our lives. The driver saw this, exited the bus and started aggressively questioning Holland if he was taking a picture of the driver for some reason and took quite a bit of convincing that we are just sad people.
We then wandered through security when it opened and headed for the pub.
We boarded the plane to find out there paperwork wasn't correct for the flight. I did consider ringing ADIPS but I imagine an Airbus is out of their remit slightly. After all the FAFF we took off and the captain apologised and announced he was putting his foot down to make up time. Coming in to Madrid we saw the mountains, then the fog, then the smoke!?! Thankfully it wasn't in the airport.
We then deplaned and met the most miserable passport control ever who looked briefly at where we'd been, chatted to his mate on the next booth then begrudgingly stamped the passport and threw it back at us. Undeterred we headed down to get the train from Terminal 4S to Terminal 4 because yay trains and through and out to get the hire car. Or we tried anyway except the Golf we were meant to have had no spare tyre. I was then asked if I could drive an auto. I said yes and a Seat Ibiza FR Auto which was a bit battered with many miles on the clock became our chariot of choice.
Heading toward Madrid we came across the utter carnage and confusion that is the Spanish motorway system with many sub exits inside exits and much confusion for all. Then we found out part of the roads around Madrid are underground, where naturally there are several exits and no GPS signal. Fun. We eventually got back to the surface and into the mess of the back streets with cars dumped seemingly everywhere including the middle of the road and on junctions. We finally ended up roughly where we needed to be and just dumped the Seat in a car park that looked vaguely like it belonged to Parque de Atracciones de Madrid and ran away. End of part 1.
P.s. Thanks to Mike for part of the title inspiration. I'll be breaking the TR more as you are limited to 10 pics per post I believe for TST hosting.
On a mild Friday night in 2022, the roar of an abused car signalled the return of an idiot from Sheffield to Cambridge North, to go and collect another idiot, When the journey reached it's end, these idiots then took really good* pictures of trains.
Then we headed for the inevitable Maccies stop near Heathrow, because what else is open at just shy of 2am? We then headed to parking and caught a bus to the terminal. When we arrived after a spirited drive, Matt tried to take a photo of the bus. I don't know why, we can't photo anything to save our lives. The driver saw this, exited the bus and started aggressively questioning Holland if he was taking a picture of the driver for some reason and took quite a bit of convincing that we are just sad people.
We then wandered through security when it opened and headed for the pub.
We boarded the plane to find out there paperwork wasn't correct for the flight. I did consider ringing ADIPS but I imagine an Airbus is out of their remit slightly. After all the FAFF we took off and the captain apologised and announced he was putting his foot down to make up time. Coming in to Madrid we saw the mountains, then the fog, then the smoke!?! Thankfully it wasn't in the airport.
We then deplaned and met the most miserable passport control ever who looked briefly at where we'd been, chatted to his mate on the next booth then begrudgingly stamped the passport and threw it back at us. Undeterred we headed down to get the train from Terminal 4S to Terminal 4 because yay trains and through and out to get the hire car. Or we tried anyway except the Golf we were meant to have had no spare tyre. I was then asked if I could drive an auto. I said yes and a Seat Ibiza FR Auto which was a bit battered with many miles on the clock became our chariot of choice.
Heading toward Madrid we came across the utter carnage and confusion that is the Spanish motorway system with many sub exits inside exits and much confusion for all. Then we found out part of the roads around Madrid are underground, where naturally there are several exits and no GPS signal. Fun. We eventually got back to the surface and into the mess of the back streets with cars dumped seemingly everywhere including the middle of the road and on junctions. We finally ended up roughly where we needed to be and just dumped the Seat in a car park that looked vaguely like it belonged to Parque de Atracciones de Madrid and ran away. End of part 1.
P.s. Thanks to Mike for part of the title inspiration. I'll be breaking the TR more as you are limited to 10 pics per post I believe for TST hosting.
