As told by me

So, after a sharp left turn at the front of the plane, we find ourselves in seat 1A, right up the sharp end, under the cockpit, and with almost the same viewpoint. After a couple of glasses of champagne whilst waiting for the great unwashed down the back to sort themselves out, we pushed back and taxied off for the runway. Apparently the rules about stowing all your stuff for take-off and landing don’t apply up here in the pointy end. I figure that they therefore either have some amazing inertial dampeners which were acquired through the Stargate, or those rules are, like most rules on planes, simply designed to keep the plebs in line.

After a brief, almost teary moment as we turned onto the runway, we were away. We flew straight over Windsor Castle (why did they build the castle that close to the airport?) and then, just as Slough hove into view, the clouds intervened, and that was the end of my time in the UK.

2 hours out from Heathrow now and the world is starting to feel really fine (soundtrack = Stone Roses). The two glasses of Heidsieck champagne were lovely, but, and I hesitate to say this lest I be branded a phillistine, it tasted faintly of sick. Maybe it was the almonds or the young black olives that came with it. Anyway, nevermind as I’ve moved on to the Delatite ‘Deadman’s Hill’ Gewurztraminer, which is lovely. I’m trying to avoid Asian food, until I’m actually in Asia (the three trips to Speedy Noodle in Brixton in the last 20 days notwithstanding – more on that later), so I shall be enjoying the following for lunch:
- salad of fennel, cucumber & relish with Loch Fyne smoked salmon
- seared halibut with olive, garlic & basil crusted with braised silverbeet & peperonata
- side salad of rocket, red chard, mizuna & baby spinach with aged balsamic & extra virgin olive oil

Lunch was pretty good, though the halibut was way overcooked. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to cook proper food on an aeroplane though, so I won’t be too critical. Anyway, I won’t bore you with intimate details of the rest of the flight other than to say I wish I had room to keep the lovely pyjamas and various toiletries that they throw in. I was also very impressed with the toilet – huge by plane standards and with a window and all.

So is First Class worth it? Well the service was excellent and they obviously put a lot of thought and effort into making it a very pleasant experience, but to be honest it was a bit lost on me. Sure, having a flat bed with actual sheets to sleep in was lovely, and I suppose if I’d been going all the way to Melbourne it would have made a bigger difference, but I would have been pretty happy further down the back.

Anyway, it only cost me £235.20 (plus a pile of points) so I’m not complaining.

Share on Facebook

Europe November 2008, Hong Kong November 2008

Monday was relatively uneventful.  The shipping company came to pick up my boxes to ship them (hopefully safely & dryly) back to Melbourne, where they should arrive sometime before I do.  I had a lovely lunch with my aunty Ann in Fulham, then popped into town to pick up some Hong Kong dollars and to do some last minute shopping.  I then headed over to Acton to stay with Suze & Mat.  I hadn’t occurred to me at the time but they came to stay with me when they first moved to London, so there was a certain symmetry in them having me to stay for my last night in London.

This morning began with a short tube ride, out past my former workplace (hi guys!) to Terminal Four, which since BA moved out, is very quiet.  I therefore didn’t really get to appreciate the benefit of checking in at the First Class desk, nor of the personal escort through security to the lounge.  Anyway, it was all very nice even though the Qantas woman was very apologetic that they’d closed the proper First Class lounge so I would have to slum it with the Business Class plebs.  Oh well.  It’s not like I paid much for the ticket.  I had thought I would look like a grotty backpacker with my travel gear on (to be fair, I’m not actually grotty, yet), but in fact, apart from the smattering of suits, I’m one of the better dressed patrons today – there are surprisingly quite a few pairs of cheap-looking tracksuit pants around.

Anyway, I’m going to go for a wander around the terminal and will try very hard to not buy anything.  Then I will head down the airbridge and take a sharp left turn before settling into seat 1A – it’s pretty empty up the pointy end of the plane today, apparently – I suppose all those fat rich people that normally fly First are too busy watching their share portfolios tumbling off a neverending series of cliffs.  Oh well – all the more Moet for me!!

Share on Facebook

Europe November 2008

Not surprisingly, Saturday started very gently, and quite late. Well, for Charlie and I at least. Poor AnnaKarin had dragged herself off to the airport for an early flight home to Stockholm for a weekend of hungover childminding.

After some bacon & eggs, and some closed-eye time, Charlie eventually persuaded me off the couch and down to Churchill’s – one of Brussels’ English pubs, to watch the Australia v England rugby game from Twickenham. Unfortunately, Belgium is yet to ban smoking indoors, and the clientele was making the most of it. This wasn’t making life any easier for me and I gently nursed a couple of lemonades down as the Wallabies slowly overcame England, much to my relief.

Meanwhile, Charlie’s mate Ben had shown up, with two workmates (Caroline & Jen) who were in town for the weekend. We proceeded to acquaint ourselves, over a couple of beers (I’m still on the lemonade) before setting off for dinner. After a hearty traditional Belgian beef stew, I was starting to feel a little more human and even managed a class of red wine. Ben, by this point, was getting excited about Karaoke. Somehow, he managed to talk us all into it (actually I think the girls were pretty keen all along) and after a heated argument in French with a taxi driver, who refused to take us, we found our way on foot to “The Karaoke Bar”, a hole in the wall which proved, over the course of the evening, to be only meeting part of the demand for Karaoke in downtown Brussels on a saturday night in November.

This turned out to be a lot of fun and I was seen in stage some four times, all of which were eminently forgettable, except for the rendition of My Way, which I’m assured was actually decent. I shall be sticking with Sinatra exclusively, from now on.

Share on Facebook

Europe November 2008

With my final day at work out of the way, I set off for St Pancras to catch the Eurostar to Brussels to see my cousin Charlie. This was a trip that I’d been feeling a little ambivalent about, as I’d seen him and his girlfriend AnnaKarin the weekend before (for his actual birthday) and there were a few people in London that I hadn’t had a chance to see. I’d actually booked the trip some months ago when I thought I’d be sticking around to the end of November and had never really intended to spend my last weekend in London, not actually in London.

Anyway, a reasonably pleasant couple of hours later (a couple of quiet London Prides on the train) I was in a cab heading for a pub in the south of Brussels. I then arrived, to be ushered directly downstairs to the (rather musty) cellar, where proceedings were already underway. There were about two dozen people in attendance, learning some of the finer points of beer production in a combination of languages, primarily French, English & German. I counted representatives of seven EU states, some EC workers, some journalists, others working for variety of industry groups and NGOs. A friendlier bunch of people I have not met in a long time and I was quickly making friends, helped along by the fact that everyone else was already tasting their third beer, so I had a bit of catching up to do. Needless to say, my earlier misgivings about the trip were quickly forgotten.

After a couple more hours sampling some of Belgium’s finest beers, we had reached the end of the lesson. Some of the more sensible types then made a strategic exit and headed home. The rest of us headed into town.

I’ve heard a number of people suggest that Brussels is a boring town. They’ve clearly never been to Le Corbeau. I’m sure this is a reasonably civilised bar earlier on in the evening. By the time we got there it was packed, literally to the rafters, with dozens of people dancing on tables and downing foamy tankards of Stella. Being not normally a fan of either table dancing or Stella, I was a little hesitant at first, but was soon right amongst the action.

And then it happened, and I knew my time in Europe was complete. Singing Nena’s 99 Luftballoons (aka 99 Red Balloons) in the original German while dancing on a table in a bar in Brussels with a group of Germans, Swedes, some token Belgians and my English cousin was about as European experience as I am ever likely to have.

Share on Facebook

Europe November 2008

And so here we begin. After many months of researching, planning and daydreaming (mostly the latter), the time has almost come for me to set off on what I hope will be a most excellent adventure.

Though I’m not actually leaving Europe until Tuesday, I finish work tomorrow and am off to Belgium for the weekend to see my cousin Chaz, so as far as I’m concerned, the adventure starts then.
With some luck we should have at least a couple of months of what I hope will be interesting, challenging, unusual and generally very Asian, experiences ahead of us.

I look forward to sharing these with you and anyone else that’s interested. Please feel free to leave comments where and when you feel inclined to do so. You will need to register to do so, but that should only take a sec.

cheers
jon

Share on Facebook

Europe November 2008