[originaltext]Friend: OK, so what happened when you got to the airport?Pauline

Friend: OK, so what happened when you got to the airport?
Pauline: Well, I waited in a queue for ages and finally it was my turn to come up to the desk. So I presented my passport and she said ’I think you need a visa’. And I said ’No I don’t, I was there six years ago and it was OK then’. So ... and I said. and she said ’Well your travel agent should have told you’. So anyway she went away to check and when she came back I just knew by the look on her face that I needed a visa. And my flight was going to go just then. And I said ’What will I do?’ And so she called over the OSLrep, they’re the people I booked through, and they were very nice to me and they said, ’Well you’ve got to go to London and get your visa. And I said ’Well can’t you have it at the airport?’ And they said ’No’. And then they said, ’Well the best thing to do is to get on this coach and go down to London’. So I got on a coach but there was pea-soup fog everywhere and so I sat on the motorway for two hours. And the whole time thinking what I am doing? And so I got down to London. And it took literally three minutes, I filled in a form, they stamped my passport. And then I had to ring the airline and try to get a flight out. And they kept saying ’Ring back in an hour. Ring back in an hour. Ring back in an hour’. And every time I had to ring back they’d say ’Sorry. Well, the nearest flight we’ve got is from Newcastle tomorrow morning.’
Friend: Oh no. You didn’t go to Newcastle.
Pauline: No, I didn’t go to Newcastle. Luckily, they kept ringing and ringing and ringing and meantime I had to kill time in Green Park. It was a hot, hot day and I was carrying all my luggage and I then kept walking back to Victoria Station.
Friend: Oh, you weren’t in Luton. You were waiting in London.
Pauline: That’s right. I then went to London. And then, so I kept ringing and then eventually they got me a flight out to the airport ... er to Ibiza.
Friend: From Luton?
Pauline: No, from Gatwick actually. So then because I was in London that was nearer Gatwick I had to then stay in London so I had to phone a friend and he was out for two hours, and then he wouldn’t be home for another two hours so I killed four hours before I got to him, stayed the night with him. He drove me to the airport the next morning. Then the plane was delayed. So I was getting really frightened by this time. And so then eventually I got on the plane and it was delayed by engine trouble and so on. And then I got out, and I got out there five minutes after the air-line office dosed and there was no message for me.
Friend: Oh my God.
Pauline: So I thought ’I don’t know what to do’. And all the other people kept saying ’Well, get in a taxi’ and you know what it’s like in a foreign country. You think ’I can’t get in a taxi. It’ll cost me the earth’. But in fact they said ’well it’s never far in these places’. And so then I decided. OK, so I got in a taxi.
Friend: But you had the address?
Pauline: Well luckily ... I didn’t have the address before I left home hut luckily at Luton airport I asked for the address, so I had the address. Right. So then the taxi drove me out to the airport ... to the villa, and we took ages to find it. We were searching round eventually, and finally found.