Firsts and lasts

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An early start from Birmingham. There are emotional goodbyes and I don’t think I will ever erase the image of my mum and dad sadly waving goodbye from their lounge window. It doesn’t matter that mum will soon have forgotten I was ever there - I just hope she will remember who I am when we FaceTime dad tomorrow! Were’s that pack of travel tissues?

We take an Uber. It’s a first for us. It arrives on time and delivers us to Birmingham Airport in good time. We will definitely be using Uber in future.

A leisurely breakfast had been planned but thanks to O2 this doesn’t happen. Instead I am on the phone to customer service as soon as it opens at 8am for the zillionth time to ask why they have not sorted out my phone in time for our trip. Long story! Thankfully our plane is slightly delayed giving me time for one last (now irate) phone call to O2 before leaving the UK, and literally as we step on the plane...and without the job being done.

We arrive in Amsterdam and my phone goes dead on the bus trip to the terminal. Three young lads are glued to their phones on the transfer bus so I ask them, does this mean O2 have finally sorted out the SIM transfer? Yep, it sounds like it, just pop the new card in, make contact with the mast and job done. Half an hour of minor anxiety whilst my new card is also dead (have I complete lost all service now?) but then it wakes up and a call from Ian confirms that PAYG is now working with my old number. Phew. Our flight to Mexico City is also running two hours late...good job really. It has given us (or should I say O2) time to sort the phone out (despite the fact that O2 had informed me that everything must be done before leaving the UK). Anyway, suffice to say that when we return to a contract phone after our trip, it won’t be with O2, so that’s a last from me!

I can only say that this would not really be our trip if it were not fraught with drama-ettes. Also shows just how much we rely on our technology to function these days. I wouldn’t be without it, but things were so much simpler in the days of long letter writing before email and smart phones were ever invented :-).

With time to kill, another interesting (?) observation on plane seat reservations. It was great when I booked this trip with Expedia, several months ago, that they gave nice little seating plans in order to choose my seats. Pity they didn’t inform me that this was a complete fools errand...when I looked at online check in a few days back it informed me that no seats had been reserved. If I wanted to do so now I could...for an extra fee of anything up to £120 - same old rubbish seats though! Pretty used to seeing this on budget airline routes but slightly bemused that the long hauls have joined in on the act. According to their pre-book seating plan for the first flight, there were only two single seats at different ends of the plane available anyway (not necessarily a bad thing) but I would not be coughing up the extra cash! I wait for standard online check in and hey presto, there are now loads of seats available...I reserve two together, right near the front (the original +£120 ones!). Obviously just a ruse to frighten folk into thinking seats are running out fast and extract some extra cash!

Moving on - we’re now on our second KLM flight and I must say that, for economy class, it’s really not bad. Reasonable amount of leg room, decent hot meal and friendliest air hostess ever. Nothing too much trouble and even Baileys served after our meal. OK it would have tasted nicer served in a glass but on the plus side you can get much more in those plastic cups :-). Happy 19th wedding anniversary says Ian as we clink our tumblers together. KLM gets the thumbs up, another first but not last from us.

It’s 10pm and we have arrived in Mexico City. We congratulate ourselves that our bags are amongst the first to arrive - all present and correct. We can see the airport taxi booth from where we are standing. Unfortunately customs want to empty our bags first. Do we look like smugglers? No, but maybe we have some fresh food on our bags? Forget any thoughts of drug running, but coming from Amsterdam it looks like they are looking to confiscate cheeses. Fortunately we don’t have any :-).

The trip to our hotel is painless and uneventful. Unusual for us! We pre pay at the airport booth and a minibus arrives to whisk us into the town centre. The hotel are expecting us, the WiFi is working and our room is clean and comfortable. A double bed each with comfy mattress and pillows. Yeah, it may be our wedding anniversary but we are both in need of some shut eye. Nice modern bathroom for a lovely freshen up shower. So now to zizz!

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