The long awaited arrival

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After over 60 hours of transit, I finally arrived in Manchester! The flight from Narita was alright - I didn't sleep and just watched bad movies. Arriving in Frankfurt was a relief and I parted ways with my two travel buddies whom I'd met on the way. I then head through to the terminal from where my next plane would leave, picking up apfelschorle and kinder chocolate on the way. At the time when we were meant to board, I wandered up to the desk to ask what was happening... the flight would be delayed by one to two hours! ARGH! What a pain! I wandered around in search of food (more specifically, kasespaetzle) but was unsuccessful, so sprawled across some seats at the gate and slept. Once on board, 1.5 hours late, everything went fairly smoothly. One of the stewards was Aussie, which was somehow comforting, and I was lucky enough to have the only spare seat on the flight next to me. In the other seat on our three-seater row was a Manchester local returning from two months working in Brazil. It was great to talk to someone as exhausted as myself from long-haul travel and who had a great knowledge of things to do in Manchester.

Immigration and customs were a breeze, I hardly queued at all! Then I was in a taxi. I couldn't really believe it - I had finally made it to Manchester! Unfortunately the taxi driver didn't know where the apartment was, but I found someone and asked them, Maria came down to meet me and I was inside. In a proper room, which a proper bed in a pretty stylish apartment (well done Maria).

Maria had kindly stocked up with some food, so we had delicious cheeses, potoatoes, salad, prosciutto and bread for dinner. I managed to stay awake chatting till after 10pm and then settled into my bed, which would be mine for another six nights.

x from a relieved (and weary) traveller

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