Britain to Brazil - Benches and Beyond

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3 months after booking my Condor flight to Salvador I reached Birmingham airport with my parents. As seems to be tradition of me going anywhere, I was nicely hungover when I check in my backpack and sat down for a farewell snack.

There were no tears on departure this time round, just a farewell for 5 months until I am due to meet my parents in Florida.

Getting to Florida in 5 months is the mission this time round. I am due to fly from Bogota, Columbia and have five months to get there from north-east Brazil with whatever entertainment I can find on the way. Of course, I have another tradition to follow, which is once again to do it alll on a pitiful budget.

I began the always dull preflight time circled the airport, avoiding duty free and gorging on Burger King I didn't need, eventually I boarded and made it to Frankfurt.

I was looking forward to seeing how efficient the German immigration control would be and wasn't disappointed. Waited barely any time to have a man who looked a perfect German stereotype to wave me through, he even managed to comment on how much weight I lack in comparison to my passport photo. Nice guy!

I had a wander about the huge amount, trying to scout out a decent bench for a sleep, and whilst doing so I found a Hooters bar and watched Messi stuff Manchester United. A Hooters bar at the airport, respect!

After much meandering about the place and a McDonald's (I swear I'd have a heart attack if I lived at an airport for a week) I found a relatively quiet passageway where a few other people were sleeping on benches.

There is an art to actually managed to sleep on a bench with your luggage. I booted down and shoved my main backpack under the bench with them. I used a micro-fleece and my daypack as a pillow, meaning no one could steal it without me being woken, and I looped my arm through it for extra security.

The positive of this sleeping location was that it gave me a nice view of my Peanuts endorsed plane. The downfall was having the airport having gales of air-con and the un-ignorable fact that I was trying to sleep on a bench.

I managed a couple of hours before jumping ship to a different area that was more of a recess and thereby with much less people walking by (American's are loud, wherever they are). I got myself a nice four seater bench here and banged out a couple of hours of deep sleep, eventually to be woken by someone coughing.

I opened my sleepy eyes to find a Chinese man, complete with whispy facial hair (think Mr. Miyagi) sitting next to me. I turned my head and noticed that the airport had clearly woken up for the day and there were loads of people now around me and clearly I had to get up too. Reluctantly, I departed my crib and head off for McDonald's for breakfast. I really don't like McDonald's, but airport is universally crap and hyper expensive. Any breakfast that includes cheese just seems wrong to me.

A few hours later I boarded the plane where I am currently seated. My knees are so squashed up I wouldn't be surprised if they got me pregnant. I definitely feel pregnant, I have been forced a lot of food on the flight, between that and the fast food diet, I am ready to burst. I was surprised to find out that there was in flight entertainment; I was more surprised to find out that they regarded The Kings Speech as entertainment. I won't even dignify Burlesque or When in Rome.

There are some amusing characters on here, an angry Latino annoyed at not being able to fit her bag in the overhead compartment. She managed to push out a suitcase which promptly fell on someone's head. There is a group of Latino women who appear to this that they are at some kind of lawn party and are all standing up, being lairy and drinking too much. The highlight however is a low grade ladyboy who is being deported from Germany by a couple of officers. Very strange...

Not long till I land....

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Comments

[Pete]

Woohoo blog is back!
Al, this blog site is waaay better, I got an email notification that you had added something...much more convenient! The story continues.... Keep it up bud.