Back to the Beginning

Ahh, I have a few moments where I’m not walking, driving or sleeping, so I’ll try and throw together a summary of things to date…

It’s been a whirlwind tour so far, so much seen, so much done. And so much for the idea of doing a daily post to update everyone on what’s been happening. But let’s see if I can get some of this down in bytes before it’s all pushed from my mind.

First, let’s get back to the beginning – the flights to get here…

It all starts at 0200 New Zealand time on April 2. The alarm goes…  After a deep shower (the last I’ll have for some time) we’re on the road by 3am heading for Auckland.  Arrived at the airport with acres of time to spare – the Cathay Pacific counter was still 20 minutes away from opening for check-in.  At least I wasn’t going to miss my flight.  Check-in formalities went quickly, and I was left with a soild 2 hours to kill before the 30 hour transit mission began.  The guy sitting next to me as I was jotting these notes was complaining about a 30 minute wait, mind you, sounds like his check in took an hour or so (Virgin flight to Melborne).  I was tempted to start pacing  around the shops, picking up things I probably didn’t need at ridiculously inflated prices.  I managed to resist the urge and instead just take some snapshots of one of the little post-security trinket shops:

Yeah, dramatic photo to kick off the Europe trip eh?  And check it out Kerryn, Icebreaker…

Around 7:45 I move down to the gate lounge, and it already looks and smells like I’m in Hong Kong.  Guess that’s part of the deal when flying with the national carrier.  Hopefully this means I’m not going to be stuck next to a smelly large American man for the next 12 hours…

Out the window I can see the Cathay Pacific tin can waiting at gate 6 for me.  Well, waiting for me and the 300 others..

The interior of the plane looks less than inviting (I am later to be much more impressed by the decor for the second flight).

So, the flight itself, the big test to see if I can sit still(ish) for 12 hours…  And then still have enough sanity left to survive 8 hours at Hong Kong airport, and then sit on another plane for another 12 hours!

Well, obviously I made it, since I’m here now.    The first 90 minutes of the flight wasn’t too painful – figuring out the in-flight entertainment system (it was crap), eating the in-flight breakfast (it wasn’t as bad as expected), and then getting bored.  I thought I had done well, and several hours had past, but no, just those 90 minutes.  So I figured I may as well try and get on top of some sleep.  Took a pill and was able to doze off.  Sweet, this is the only way to pass the time on a flight.  I woke up feeling great, until I realised I still had 6 hours to go.

Of course I did make it to Hong Kong, and turns out that it’s a fairly interesting place (as far as airports go).

Flight number two was longer.  But heaps better.  Met a very helpful Frenchman (hehe, a rarity, and I’m only saying that to rial up Philippe on the off chance he reads this).  The plane was better equipped (more comfortable seats – if there is such a thing in economy class, newer entertainment system).  But most of all the timing was better as everyone was heading for the same timezone so all slept at the same time.  That said, my sleep was a little broken.

So my first ‘day’ in Europe starts at about 4:00 am local time when I wake on the plane and have the in-flight breakfast. Not too bad really, but the croissant is a bit of a joke compared with what I’m going to devour once I’ve landed.

So back to Fabrice, the frenchman I met on the plan.  He was getting picked up from the airport by his brother in law and offered me a ride into the heart of Paris.  This is how everyone’s experience of a new country should begin – with the assistance of a friendly local.  So after a whole bunch of advice, some snacks and a couple of metro tickets I’m dropped off in the heart of Paris just minutes from the hostel I needed to be at.

Dropped my bags at the hostel and the lovely girl that checked me in suggested I sneak down to the kitchen and grab breakfast, even though strictly you’re only supposed to have the breakfast the morning after you’ve stayed.

Croissant and OJ on board and I start to walk around the city (I think it’s about 8am at this stage).  I consider figuring out the metro (subways are completely new to me) but instead opt to walk around the main sights.  And so I do.   By 11pm I’m finally crashing in the hostel having spent most of the 19 hour day walking and filling a 2 gb CF card with photos.  This will be my first horizontal sleep since I left NZ roughly 60 hours earlier.

As I say, even this day in Paris would take a month a blog posts to summarise, so I’ll go with just one photo for now.  It’s inside some museum place and  there’s a painting to the left of that grumpy looking French guard lady that everyone seems awfully excited about.

It’s the end of day 5, and I’ve managed to get a post up about day 1.