English Breakfast Or Earl Grey?

---

Friday 14 May. The good news is that we have arrived safely in London. The bad news is that the program that we were using successfully to add photos to our blog is no longer working for some unknown reason. On top of that, my camera is refusing to allow me to view some photos on the camera screen. I think that they are still recorded on the memory chip, as there are blank gaps, but we aren't able to view them. It is possible that there is a connection between the two problems and the end result is that we can no longer risk loosing our photos by trying to put them on our blog. So it is going to be a text only blog again from now on (except that this one may have a couple of photos on it that I downloaded before all the problems began); a pity really, as we think that a picture is often better than a thousand words. Just a reminder here that, when you open the blog site, each entry only gives you a part of he text if the text is more than a few lines long. On the end of the few lines that you get however are the words . Left click on this and it will give you all the text and make the photos larger. To see the photos even larger, just left click on a photo.

We left Singapore right on time at 11.30 pm local time. The first thing that you notice about the new Airbus A380 Super Jumbo is that it looks very similar inside to a Boeing 747 Jumbo or any other wide body jet. However, it is when you climb up or down the wide spiral staircase at the rear of the aircraft that you realize that this is a bigger bird; not in width, but in height. The body cross-section is oval rather than round, allowing two full decks of passenger seating. On the main deck the seating in economy class is 3-4-3 across, while that on the top deck (where we were this time) is 2-4-2 across. With around 400 economy passengers, 20 business class passengers, 8 passengers in first class suites, and 22 crew, the plane carried 450 people all told; close to capacity. With baggage for all those people and an enormous weight of fuel for its 13 hour trip, it is a marvel that it gets off the ground. And that is the second thing that you notice about this plane; even when its four enormous engines are at full throttle, it is amazingly quiet inside. Unfortunately there are other things that the manufacturers didn't plan for nearly as well. The seats are very firm, lacking the comfort of the seats in Boeing aircraft. They also seem narrower. A really unfortunate and near-sighted mistake was to put in fewer toilets when carrying a lot more people! In the Boeing 767 there was hardly ever the need for anyone to queue, whereas the A380 constantly had 3 or more queuing at each toilet; a real case of a lot of planners never learning from accumulated experience.

This flight was completed almost entirely in darkness, and the meals worked out very much as anticipated. The first meal was served within an hour after take-off. It had very much a dinner menu but, in consideration of the time of departure, was renamed supper. Prior to arrival in London we were served breakfast. In between, which was about 10 hours of flying time, 'light bites' were available. These were a selection of sandwiches, biscuits, chips, fruit etc, for anyone who was still awake. As predicted, there were a couple of young children who cried nearly all night, although I didn't hear them. I knocked myself out with one of my magic traveling pills and slept for about 7 hours. Karen had a lot less, but dozed on and off. We were too tired to bother about movies this time; a pity really as the personal entertainment system is something that the A380 has improved on a lot, with large wide-screen monitors and easier to use remotes.

I think that we have learnt some useful lessons from these two flights. The first is to look more carefully at what time of day or night the flights are scheduled, and how long the gap is. Leaving NZ late at night and sleeping at the normal time on the first leg (as we have done in the past) may be preferable to what we did this time. A wait of 5 to 6 hours between flights is too long. No more than 2 hours would be preferable. We also think that the time is rapidly approaching when we will have to consider stopping for 3 or 4 days after the first flight rather than gutsing out these long 30 hour hauls. While the very big jets are marvels of engineering, we still prefer the middle-sized jets for tourist class travel. The yet to be released Boeing Dreamliner is one of these, but capable of the very long-haul flights of the big jets. With Air NZ having ordered them, it will be interesting to see if they offer the best of both what all the others offer now.

We cleared London imigration and customs very quickly, most of the 20 minutes that it took being waiting for baggage. As is common when entering Europe now, customs don't outwardly exist! Having collected your bags, you just walk out. Presumably someone is watching on a TV monitor somewhere for suspicious looking characters! Then it was a 10 minute internal walk to the tube station (nothing in a place like Heathrow, one of the 2 or 3 biggest airports in the World). Travelators (like horizontal escalators) help speed you along. If we had those in Northlands we could Mall walk without actually moving our legs! As expected, once on the hour tube ride into the city, we felt like we were back in London again. There is something timeless and unique about this city that is hard to explain. You have to have been here for some time, have gone home, and then returned again. Then you notice what hasn't changed, and that is what gives it its character; endless rows of terraced housing that date back for over a century, billions of bricks used in the construction of houses, bridges, walls etc, the rush of air through an underground station as a tube approaches, a street cleaner with his broom, pan, and push-along wheeled rubbish tin quietly keeping 'his patch' clean of litter, people from all around the World sitting next to each other in the tube every day going to work but hardly ever speaking a word, a double-decker bus squeezing down a narrow street with only centimetres to spare, or a person on a motor scooter spending every working day for 3 years learning London's streets so that one day he can own and operate a black cab. Whether its the centre of of London, a place teeming with people and cars, important big buildings, both old and new, crowds of tourists, traffic jams, and pigeons, or whether it is the suburbs, still busy places but with a slower pace of life, quiet uncrowded parks, and Londoners getting on with their lives, there is so much about London that seems so unshakeably constant. Much of what gives London its character doesn't change because it defines what London is and stands for, and nobody wants to change that. And so, living as we are now, and have done in the past, in a very ordinary but typical terraced house in a very ordinary but typical London street, in a very average London suburb, we feel that we have absorbed some part of what it takes to appreciate London for what it is and, in doing so, have come to appreciate this great city more ourselves.

Having reached Leicester Square underground station, a short walk through a tunnel and up two flights of stairs, allowed us to change from the Picadilly Line to the Bakerloo line, on which we made our way out to Kensal Green in the NW. Exiting the tube here (above ground at this point), we felt the 5 degree early morning temperature, realising that this was the first time that we had been outside since crossing the airport carpark to the overseas terminal in Christchurch some 36 hours earlier! A short walk brought us to David & Tracey's house, where David was literally 'on his bike' ready to cycle to work. We have spent the rest of the day drinking tea, unpacking, drinking tea, enjoying a shower, walking to Sainsburys (large local supermarket), and having another cup of tea. I'm still well awake at this stage (could be a result of all that tea!), but Karen is sitting with her feet up (relieving swollen ankles that are one result of long-haul flights) and having the odd few 'winks'.

Some good news today was the Crusaders winning their 'quarter final' last night (not on TV here). We don't envy them having to return to SA for their semifinal after having just got back to ChCh.

Bye for now. P&K

---

Photos

D&T's House
David welcomes his mother a moment after we arrive outside his house in Kensal Green.

Tea On The Terrace
Sitting in the morning sun in D&T's back yard, we enjoy our first cup of tea before settling in.

Comments

[Sherrie]

Welcome
Welcome to the UK! So pleased to hear all went well travel wise. Hopefully you are relaxing now and drunk lots of Earl Grey! Your blogs have made interesting reading. sorry to hear about the photos, hopefully you will be able to get it sorted soon. Hoping you enjoy our Summer and that it will be a good one weather wise - fingers crossed.