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I have decided to start at the very beginning and a necessary evil of all international travel is of course the international airport. It all begins at Auckland international airport on a fine Tuesday night...... Let me introduce my fellow travellers. There is of course myself, vertically challenged and prickly of nature, my partner in crime (we shall call him DS) a Danish national and proud of it and last but not least our third wheel (we shall refer to her as LJ) a fine kiwi lass armed with a 2 year UK visa.
LJ and I make our first travel purchase, the ubiquitous travel pillow. Much to DS's dismay I choose the ladybug shaped one and promptly name him Maurice.
After final goodbyes to our lovely friends who came to see us off we board our Air NZ flight to Shanghai at 11pm.
Flight one goes fairly smoothly, apart from one confusing moment when LJ needs our opinion on whether the meat in her meal is salmon or chicken... We decide to call it chalmon and she eats it regardless. We arrive at Shanghai Pudong international airport fairly smug at how well we have weathered our first 12 hour leg (thank you zopiclone). LJ has a few sentences in Chinese she wants to practice so off she goes to terrorise some locals, DS and I try to get the free airport WiFi to work and fail miserably. After 4 hours in transit we are back on a A340 bound for Heathrow, London. We are in seats 65D-65F..... Yes you guessed it folks we are the very back row. For those not in the know, the back row involves:
1- not being able to recline your seat further than 2 degrees
2- listening to the loud chatter of the flight attendants (actually this isn't really a negative as you will see soon)
3- hearing the toilet make that creepy, sucking, flushing sound every 30 seconds
4- hearing the ding of the "call the air attendant" bell whenever a fellow flyer feels they need another blanket
But I am starting to sound whingy so I will move on. The highlight of this flight was hearing one air attendant remark to another in an unidentifiable but broad British accent " I'm surprised they knew how to say orange" (speaking of our Chinese flyers), followed by "they never want ice in their drinks Chinese people" (as if making a profound statement). Maybe it was because we had been travelling for 24hours, I guess we will never know, but LJ and myself found this all very funny.
12 hours and one movie later (les miserables, not that anyone asked) we are standing in a customs line waiting to be admitted into the UK. DS looked very pleased with himself as he cruised through his UK/EU passport line and waited for us on the other side. 10 minutes of lining up and 5 minutes of classic customs officer chat later and we are officially within UK borders. LJ makes her way to the train to find her way to her brothers house, while DS and I head for the tube and a friends pullout couch.
I won't bore you with the details but DS had neglected to record his friends address other than on Facebook and we had no Internet, but an hour and a half, a few terse words and stones silences later we are on their doorstep.
Watch out London... Have arrived.
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