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Published: February 19th 2007
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Hey everyone!! I’ve arrived in the UK and thought I’d just let you all know that I made it alive!! However it does seem that the travel gods did not want me to make it here and did everything in their power to stop me.
The morning of Saturday the 17th of Feb started off with mum waking me because we’d had a power cut during the night so obviously my alarm wasn’t going to go off! Luckily Lise had noticed during the night and told mum otherwise the last minute packing might’ve happened much faster. So to cut a long story semi-short I then boarded the plane heading to Sydney at 2pm after saying goodbye to my Mum, Dad and Lise. When I arrived in Sydney I had 2 hours before my connecting flight departed giving me plenty of time in which to talk to British Airways about getting a window seat instead of the aisle seat I currently had, as well as claim the duty free from my camera and buy a bottle of Gordon’s gin for my aunt to give when I arrived. However about 30 minutes after boarding the plane in Melbourne we were told by the
pilot that some last minute maintenance was being performed. Eventually he came back and said they had a problem which was going to take a few hours to fix and that we were going to get put on other flights. Luckily they gave priority to those of us with connections and I arrived in Sydney with 45 minutes to make my connection. We were then bundled onto the bus to take us to the international terminal, and after arriving I hurried over to the BA counter to change my seat, where they gave me a disapproving look for not being at the gate yet, and told me that there were no available window seats anymore. I then jogged through Sydney airport (and surprisingly didn’t get tackled by any security guards), and as I went through the duty free section I suddenly came across a rack with bottles of the gin I was going to buy stacked on them. After quickly buying that, I went to the tax back area where I received another disapproving look as they aren’t allowed to process the tax unless you arrive earlier than 30 minutes before your flight (my watch said I only had 27 minutes to go), but they put it through anyway. I then boarded the plane on the final call. On the plane I finally got some luck as I was sitting next to a really nice woman who barely ever seemed to need the toilet. I got out Sophie’s crossword which was really funny but deceptively difficult. I still haven’t managed to finish it - I need help Sophie. What is the answer to 6) Our home is powered by… and 21) All the cool kids go here (the only thing I could think of was prison!!). I got some pretty funny looks from the woman next to me as she read the crossword over my shoulder. The flight was fairly uneventful, except that as we travelled with night for half the flight the lights were out most of the time which meant I slept alot. I decided not to tempt the vengeful travel gods by getting off the plane at Bangkok (it was only an hour stopover) but they managed one last sabotage at Heathrow. We arrived a little bit early however whilst waiting for my bags there was an announcement over the loudspeaker asking me to go to customer service where they told me that they had sent my bags to Tokyo. He didn’t say why, in fact the guy that told me sounded like it was perfectly logical that my bag was in Tokyo. They told me they would send it out and sent me packing (pun kinda intended). Because I had arrived early my aunt hadn’t arrived yet so I sat down in a nearby café (Starbucks - invading the globe) to wait. I spent most of my time watching the chauffeur guys with their signs waiting to pick up various people. I love how the signs differed from signs which had printed and laminated to guys holding scraps of paper with the name scrawled in barely legible handwriting. However one sign particularly caught my attention. It big letters it said Mr. Joshua Pyke. I decided that the name couldn’t be that common, but I wasn’t sure I’d recognise him cause he generally isn’t in his video clips and I’ve only ever seen him perform once at his corner gig. Eventually someone I vaguely recognised walked past (I decided not to harass him cause he’d just been on a long flight and probably was not up to dealing with me hassling him for autographs. He left, and I remembered I had photos from that gig on my MP3 player, so I was able confirm it was him. So that was my celebrity sighting. Look I know its not anyone major but I was excited, you gotta admit its pretty coincidental (sort-of).
So anyway the UK is kinda cold at the moment (big shock huh!!). It has that grey overcast look which seems to depress everyone else but I think makes everything look really cool, like a perpetual twilight. Australia can’t pull off overcast cause all the buildings have been built for sunny days (except that really ugly gold hotel in the centre of Melbourne which is only bearable at night), whereas the UK has lots of grey stones around and green fields and the grey sky makes everything a bit mysterious.
So anyway haven’t done heaps since I arrived. I saw my Granny yesterday for a couple of hours but otherwise just mainly pottered around. I’ve been in the country for over 24 hours but my luggage which was supposed to arrive last night still hasn’t made it!!!
Thanks to those guys who’ve already left messages or sent me e-mails (yes Marcy insults against Trent are on the web - but it means we all get to enjoy them!!). Anyway I’ve rambled on long enough (that was one long message), and Takeshi’s Castle is about to start on TV. Hope I didn’t bore everyone to death. My advice is that one person reads the message and then summarises it for everyone else!! Something along the lines of - “He Made it!”.
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