Sunday, May 04, 2008

Monica Arrives in London...Pt1 (I think!)

Well so I sat in the airport lounge at Melbourne airport on the 25th of April....yes ANZAC day (which I felt was quite apt) trying to psych myself up for the super long flight I was about to get onto. I was also pinching myself trying to work out if this was really happening or if it was all part of some bizarre dream. But it was true... crazy , but true. While I was trying to carry all my stuff onto the plane I kept on getting calls (THANKS guys...) which caused me to drop just about everything I was carrying  on more than one occasion! I felt like it was some kind of bad omen! Lucky for me I don't believe in omens so I just got on with it! 

First part of the flight was about 8 hours and I was so happy that I was able to sleep though a good proportion of it! My lead up to leaving was so intense and crazy that I was completely exhausted! AND my most wonderful youngest brother Tim let me take his really great pillow with me which made all the difference in the world! You never understand how far away your head is from you shoulder until you have to sleep sitting up without a pillow! 

So we arrived at about 6am into Hong Kong and spent about an hour and a half in the airport. It was SO good to be able to stretch out properly. Things were all running very smoothly so we got back on board and started the longer stretch which was about twelve and a half hours. It was really fascinating to fly over China (yes James you're right, it's even interesting from the sky!) and Russia, Germany. 

Just at the point where I thought I would never be able to watch another movie ever again we started to fly across England. It was super busy at Heathrow (for a change) and we had to circle for a bit first,  even when we did touch down there were no gates free so we had to get out onto the tarmac and catch a bus to the terminal. It too FOREVER!

THEN we had to get through Immigration which just seemed like it would never end. Poor Jeanine who was waiting for me outside was beginning to think she had missed me coming out!  But, yes of course, I did finally come out! We then made our trek on the tube with my massive suitcase... we made a couple of strategic plans " just in case" one of us get held behind because of the massive proportions of this suitcase of mine. But luckily people in the tightly packed tube carriage somehow managed to let us squeeze past. 

I kept on having that weird feeling of  "am I really here" going through my head over and over. But we finally got to St Patrick's in Soho where we climbed the stairs (lots of stairs) to my room! Al I really wanted to do was curl up in a ball and go to sleep. But (and it was a good plan) the girls wouldn't let me and i was shown around the place, and then taken out to dinner. It was a really lovely and absolutely hilarious dinner. But I was beginning to fade rather badly so as son as we got home I climbed (I'm serious... there are a LOT of stairs) up to my room and just fell into bed! 

Ok .... stay tuned for part 2!!!!!

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