an inconvenient day

the RAF Red Arrows were visiting Gibraltar after 15 years. everyone was abuzz with excitement! an aerobatic show was scheduled at 11 am in europa point. naturally, everyone wanted a piece of the action. so we decided to go at half past 10, plenty of time to pick the perfect parking spot. or so we thought. traffic was bad near ocean village as we got out of the parking lot. we were inching our way to queensway quay. we could see the show had already started as we see the smoke in the sky.


we thought we got out of the worse as we head through rosia bay. but alas! when we entered the tunnel right after little bay, we didnt see daylight ever again.. nor the Red Arrows themselves :( what we saw instead was the long line of cars queuing up inside the tunnel. like us, they were stuck. what a waste of time! logistics-wise, it was poorly planned. taking into consideration the volume of people as well as cars that were expected to come, there was only one entry and exit points of the vehicles :( and in the end we never really did reach europa point as the RGP ordered us to turn back because they finally decided (more than an hour after the show!) to use the tunnel as an exit point as well :(

so we resigned to our fate of not seeing the famous Red Arrows in action, we headed dejectedly towards home. at this point we were feeling first degree pangs of hunger and i desperately need to peepee. it was already 30 past 1 in the afternoon. time for lunch.

as luck would have it, there was also a dog show in victoria stadium. and naturally, there was also a queu for parking! after quickly relieving myself, i hurriedly went to KFC to buy a quick lunch. guess what i saw in KFC. another f------ queu! my husband who was by now pissed and hungry and sweaty and frustrated decided to just pick up a sandwich at a new coffee shop that opened. they had none we liked so again we walked and made a beeline for The Mexican. thank God there was no queu! or so we thought. our order came 30 minutes late and by this time i was ready to explode!

after i tried to calm myself and finally found the will to eat my cheeseburger, my husband and i headed towards the south dispersal in the airfield for the display of the famed Red Arrows! or so we thought. what we found were only the Hawks, the Tornados and the Typhoon fighter jets. well, the guy i talked to told us theyre actually just the same except for the color. well, yeah of course they are but.... the Red Arrows just have a nice paint job to it. it makes all the difference really.

and so that was how we spent the majority of that lovely saturday. either queuing up or being inconvenienced by reasons unknown to us.