UK Blog #1: Goodbye Sydney, Hello Heathrow

You have to be at the airport by 4am for a 6am flight - what do you do?
Well, don't bother going to bed the night before. May as well use that time to pre-prepare your body clock to London time. If you're going to London, that is. If you're not, well, you may as well go back to bed.

So instead I stayed awake and caught a taxi into the International Airport at the most ungodly hour of 3.30am. I didn't think anybody could be perky and chatty at that hour, but nevertheless my taxi driver was full of it. Perk, that is. He came to Australia from Afghanistan twenty-eight years ago, arriving here about the same time I did. In my mind that makes him as Australian as I am. I got to hear his story about how his economics degree wasn't recognised, so he started working as an accountant, with some taxi shifts on the side. Now he works full time as a taxi driver, inspiring mirth into those who'd rather be asleep at that time of the morning. So thank you, friend. You set a good tone for my holiday.

My first experience going through customs and security was uneventful. Well, that said they did point the finger of judgement at my 110g tube of toothpaste. I don't know what they were afraid I was going to do with it - break into the cockpit and give the flight crew a good scrubbin', I guess. Still, to prove I wasn't a terrorist in the fight against tartar, I surrendered my Colgate guessing it would prove rather inconsequential to everyone except Mel, who I'll be meeting (and possibly revolting) in London. This proved to be wrong - more on that soon.

Let me stop here and share some lessons learnt thus far:

1. Don't wait to get hard foreign currency at the airport if you're flying out at stupid o'clock in the morning. The currency exchange places are all closed.
2. Nothing else is open either.
3. Don't try and smuggle your 56-piece swiss army knife aboard an international flight, or any other flight. Still not sure what happened to that young lady, God rest her soul.

Back to the story, where I'm sitting on my A380 (seat 56K) which boasted a cabin crew of 19, with a whopping 15 languages under their belt. Breakfast was served not long after take-off, though since I was trying to adjust to London time (nearing bedtime), I didn't see any problem in having a red wine with my omelette, baked beans and hash browns for breakfast. Though I admit my pallet is still reviling its abuse, the wine did wash down the sleeping tablets rather nicely, and I slept until lunchtime.

Lunchtime came around, in the form of a lamb tangine, which was super good! Unfortunately, something in it didn't quite agree with me, and I spent the rest of the flight periodically dashing to the bathroom to throw up said tangine (photos withheld). Perhaps this was my body's (or my conscience's, or God's) way of telling me not to drink red wine with breakfast. Injury was added to with the insult of not having my toothpaste anymore, so I was able to relive the taste of the delightful tangine all the way to Dubai, some several hours away. I had no problem with the idea of travelling by myself, though I will say that when you're sick and you're all by yourself, it does heighten the sense of vulnerability you feel.

On approach, I got a couple of nice photos of the UAE coastline. Nothing spectacular, unless you're me, in which case it's the first land you've seen in your life that isn't Australia. It was delightful seeing some of the architecture of the houses while we landed, and though the CBD is a far way away, I did see a glimpse of the Burj Khafti from inside the airport.

Which is where I sit now. Thankfully I don't feel crook anymore. I've found my gate (B13 for those interested, probably only my father) and am sitting here drinking a coffee and eating a blueberry muffin. The coffee was purchased from a rather safe looking cafe, which looked like it had a proper barista making proper coffee. I don't need to tell you it's a disappointment, though all credit - it's better than what I was expecting. Probably shouldn't have gotten a large though...

Soon, now that I've found my gate, I'll get up and wander the shops. Advice given to me was to load USD onto a card to use in Dubai, though my cafe only listed prices in AED; a currency I don't have on my card. Wondering if it pulled it out of my USD or if I'll be hit with some whopping penalty fee later on. Needless to say, I'm hesitant to buy anything unless I can pay USD for it.

Ah well, there's nothing for it. I'm going to go for a shop and see if I can't accidentally spend my entire holiday budget in bank fees.

****

So the highlight of my Dutyfree shopping spree in Dubai was the Bounty chocolate milk I found. Chocolate coconut milk. So good. Why is this not in Australia?

I also discovered that in Dubai, you can buy all sorts of medications off the shelf. All I needed was Panadol, but had I needed contraceptive pills, steroid creams, Seretide inhalers, there it was all their for my self-medicating convenience! Hooray!

But I just stuck with the Panadol.

The Dubai to Heathrow leg of the trip was comparably shorter, and nicer. Some Big Bang Theory, and a couple of movies later we were on approach. I finally got around to seeing the movie 'Gravity' with Sandra Bullock. Great movie, though possibly not the best choice as an inflight movie. Nevertheless gravity was working in our favour as we started flying over England.

It was an exhilarating feeling, flying over Europe from Dubai, passing over Kuwait, Iraq, Constantinople, Germany. I saw snow-capped peaks from the air! Until it was dark. Then it was just random collections of lights and I had to guess which places they were. Still, all that excitement couldn't beat seeing the lights of the coast of England through the window as we crossed the English Channel.

While my ancestors came to Aus from various regions of the UK four or five generations ago, there was still a vague sense of 'coming home' excitement which accompanied my arrival. And I do feel a sense of being 'at home' here.

It's nice.

SG