adminA mourner got so drunk after a friend’s funeral he woke up hundreds of kilometres away in Amsterdam and “had no idea” how he got there. Inebriated Sainsbury’s worker James O’Kane, from Orpington, south-east London, booked a 4am taxi to Gatwick Airport and bought a £232 ticket to the Dutch capital after a wake the night before.The 22-year-old first realised he was not at home when he was woken up on a British Airways flight as it landed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
“I cannot believe what happened. I remember waking up on the flight when the stewardess announced we had landed in Amsterdam. I had no idea how I got there,” he told MailOnline.
“I took a picture at the airport, I think I was still a bit drunk, and I was pleased to be there. But then I realised I had no money, nowhere to stay, no luggage, no underwear, not even tooothpaste. I had also left my glasses at home so was struggling to see.
“I also had never been abroad on my own before. For the next three days I wandered around in my three-piece suit and had to buy some flip-flops because shoes were hurting. I couldn’t afford trainers. The worst thing was that Amsterdam was below freezing.
“I have never done anything like this before, it’s completely out of character”.
James said after the funeral of his friend Paula, 20, there was a wake and he later attended a birthday party in Croydon after what had been a “sad day”.
When in Holland the Sainsbury’s worker admitted he panicked because he had never been abroad on his own before. He had used the passport he had taken to the pub as ID to leave Britain.
After a conversation with airline staff in Amsterdam he learned his return flight home was in three days, but he had no accommodation booked in the city and only £50 in his pocket.
But any hopes that he would be rescued by his mother Janice, 58, evaporated because she agreed to pay for a hotel room but no earlier flight because he ‘had made his bed and had to lie in it’.
On Facebook he checked in at his Amsterdam hotel and told friends: ‘Having a fantastic time on my own abroad wearing the same clothes, and the same breath as a deceased homeless person not to forget waking up 520km away from where I originally began’.
His father Nick, 57, said today: ‘It is unbelievable. He rang his mum and said “I cannot believe it mum, I’m in Amsterdam”.
“We were tearing our hair out — completely gobsmacked.”
So for three days James wandered Amsterdam’s streets in his funeral suit and flip flops bought because his formal shoes rubbed his feet. A lack of money to enjoy the historic city of Amsterdam was made worse because he had left his glasses in Orpington. But he did take a series of selfies to remember his holiday.
He said: “It’s funny now, but I wasn’t laughing then. I’m not planning any more adventures.”
In November a teenager who went out clubbing in Manchester with his mates woke up in Paris the following morning after booking a flight in the early hours.
Luke Harding was getting a cab home from the Tokyo Project nightclub, nicknamed Tokes, in Oldham when he found his passport in his pocket and drunkenly decided to visit the Eiffel Tower.
Mr Harding, a sheet metal worker, asked the shocked taxi driver to head immediately for Manchester Airport then booked a last minute 6am flight for £100 through Flybe to the French capital using his mobile phone.
The 19-year-old eventually woke up in a toilet cubicle at Charles De Gaulle Airport — 900km from where he started his night to remember. — AP
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