📙 Part 2: Describe a journey/travel you were looking forward to but it was delayed

This episode's vocabulary

To delay (verb) - to make something happen at a later time than originally planned or expected.

Accommodation (noun) - a place to stay or live.

To cross your fingers (idiom) - to hope that things will happen in the way that you want them to.

Spectacularly (adverb

) - extremely.

Furious (adj.) - extremely angry.

Disarray (noun) - the state of being confused and having no organization or of being untidy.

Back to back (phrase) - happening one after another, without interruption.

Breathing room (noun) - a period of rest in order to increase strength or give you more time to think about what to do next.

Apoplectic (adj.) - extremely and obviously angry.

Monumentally (adverb) - extremely (usually used when describing something in a negative way).

Questions and Answers

M: Rory, hello.

R: Hello, I'm ready.

M: Give us your story. Rory story. Off you go.

R: Well, this task is almost made for me. Because there was this one time I was heading down south to Mighty Hoopla, which is like this massive Music Festival in London. And my flight got delayed by several hours. To be more exact, the festival itself was in a place called Brockwell Park in the summer of 2023. And I'd planned all my transport and stuff so could get to my accommodation and get changed and then meet my best friend and some other people later on with lots of time to spare. No stress. Originally, I'd been hoping to make it down on the train. But there were some strikes which made that impossible. So I booked some flights with a company called Ryanair, which does these cheap flights between London and Edinburgh. And normally, I wouldn't have done that. But they were the only option. And I just had to cross my fingers and hope that everything turned out okay. But that's not really a great way to live your life because something always goes wrong. And in this case, it went spectacularly badly. The flight was delayed by about three hours, just as we were supposed to be boarding. And I mean, why they left it until the last moment, I have no idea. But people were furious. And I was one of them since it basically threw all of my plans into disarray. And I really wanted to get there in good time and be all ready for my friends and have a nice night. But from that point on, the point of delay, everything pretty much ran back to back with no breathing room. And I had to run around London like a mad person trying to get everything sorted out. Honestly, it was such a hassle. Didn't become obvious until later, but apparently the airline had booked a different plane. But due to certain regulations, the crew had to change and the only available plane was one coming up from Poland of all places. I mean, why they hadn't planned for that effectively is anyone's guess. But it was the reason why it happened at least, so at least there was some explanation. I was quite surprised at how angry I was, to be honest with you. I mean, I've never ever been so apoplectic with rage, I was all speechless at the time. I could hardly believe they so monumentally screwed up all my plans. If I had the chance to do the whole thing over again I'd have found some alternative that didn't mess things up so badly. Hopefully, next year will be a more positive experience.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your story!

R: It's not a story. It's a traumatic event in my life.