Arrival

Journey Commenced 16th July 2008 at 5:45pm NZ Time.

Melbourne Airport (Transfer)

The flight from Auckland to Melbourne wasn't too bad. I tried to keep awake in the hopes that I would fall asleep on the Dubai Trip.
At the Melbourne airport, during the transition period I ordered a vegetarian pizza. The girl at the counter told me she would call out to me when it was ready, so I sat down and started reading my book.
After about 15 minutes or so (I'm guessing here as I didn't have any way of telling the time) an announcement came across asking for all NZ Passengers who were on the Dubai flight to go through.
I walked over to the counter and asked the chick where my Pizza was. She told me they'd accidently burnt it but it was nearly ready.
As I waited for her to fetch it, an announcement came across for "All other Passengers" to board. I tried to eat as much of the pizza as I could in about 2 seconds, before I threw it in the bin.

Twas highly frustrating, but what else should I have expected from the Australians?

Dubai Airport (Transfer)

Flight was tiresome. I spent a lot of it awake watching movies and playing hangman. My seat was up against a wall so I couldn't even recline it. Sat next to a lady from Australia who was going to Nairobi to hike up a massive mountain. She told me that one of the days they would be walking for 14 hours.
My thoughts: Fuck That.

We arrived at 5am, the temperature was 34 degrees celcius, and it was bright outside, almost like it was mid-day or something. The first thing you see when you get out of the plane is hundreds of people sleeping on the ground in the airport. This was a real shock for me, coming from little New Zealand where you generally have more seats then people.
I rushed to the gate where I would be departing straight away (mum had told me she pretty much had to run to make it to her flight on time). This was about a 15minute fast paced walk/slow jog right at the other end of the airport.
Now knowing where I needed to get to and the distance, I rushed back to find a duty free store to get a bottle of Isle of Islay Laphroaig for Mark. I paid 160 DHS or AED (Emirates Currency) which is about $60 NZ.
Buying it from the NZ Duty free store it was about $80, so I'm assuming it's about a $120 bottle.
WHATA BARGIN!
While I was waiting in line the announcement for my flight went, which put me into an instant panic as there were two people in front of me and it took about 15minutes to get there.
I made it on time, totally drenched in sweat from the rush and heat.

You queue up at the gate, then you jump on a bus to the plane. Weird. I sat next to another Australian chick, who seemed nice, but moved shortly after as she was tired and wanted to sleep. It was mean as I got two chairs to myself to sleep on. Thanks lady.

Food on both Emirates flights were suprisingly alright, especially as they catered for me being vegetarian.

Newcastle

Glad to finally arrive. It was sweet having a British passport and racing through the short line.
The Airport Police gave me the mean evils, but probably thought I was alright since I went through the UK line.
Dom was waiting there to pick me up at the airport which was cool. Driving back I buzzed out at pretty much everything. Everything reminded me of Coronation Street.
I'm pretty weirded out by things at the moment. All the houses are brick, every building has a chimney, most of the number plates are yellow, were just a few things.
When I opened the fridge there was only one branded item I recognised. 'Heinz' Tomato Sauce.

Dom and I went into Newcastle City on the train. It cost us £3.70 (roughly $9-10) return.
Eveywhere was brick, but it reminded me somewhat of Wellington, you walk everywhere.
Dom warned me about "Chav's" which are Englands version of gangsters. Basically a bunch of jock douchebags who wear running jumpsuits and go around looking for fights.
Dom had an appoinment, so I just walked around town by myself for awhile. The streets are full of people, rubbish bins were over-flowing with rubbish scattered everywhere. It was quite disgusting. I eventually found a Vodafone store after asking around and using my catch phrase "Hey, I'm from New Zealand."
I was expecting to see a massive store, but it was acutally really tiny. I guess in NZ we've only really got 3 mobile providers, where as over here they've got shitloads.

We caught the train back and went to the supermarket "Sainsburys." This place was the business.
Everything was laid out nicely and remotely logically, the vegetarian section was massive, there was lots of Fair Trade selection, yet again, I still didn't recognise any of the brands.
I went in search for some pre-made falafel mixture, but couldn't find any. I asked one of the ladies there, used my catch phrase and she thought I was Canadian. haha. I was stoaked. Here I was getting my "DON'T CALL ME AN AUSSIE BITCH" ready and she thought I was Canadian. Mean.


We had a sweet dinner, then I went to sleep at 8pm.

That's all for today, more to follow...



So it finally happened, I made it overseas.

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