The Journey: Pt 1

C here.

I'm writing this from our self-catered flat in Edinburgh, watching a game show called "Golden Balls". Yes, it is as intriguing as its title suggests. We arrived here about three hours ago, and drinking hot, caffeinated drinks to fight against the jet-lagged.

The excitement of our overseas odyssey came before we'd even left Brisbane. I went through the security check ahead of G, and after walking through the x-ray thingamy, two security guards whisked me away to a booth for a random sample check and body search. Unfortunately, G didn't see this happen as his backpack had to go through the x-ray machine twice for some reason, and therefore assumed I'd gone through the passport check without him. My sample check (all clear for drugs and explosive residue) and body search (more intimate than your usual pat down) took about five minutes, and when I emerged he was already at the desk having his passport examined. The problem was that G had my passport while I had both our boarding passes, so neither of us could get through customs without the other. I had to skip the queue, which probably annoyed everyone else, but who cares?

The flight from Australia was long, but okay. It left Brisbane at 11.45pm, which I'd hoped would help encourage the sleep, but no luck. G managed to snooze for a while, and I watched several movies. At Singapore, we had a three hour break, and luckily G had enough Singaporean coins left over from his last trip to Germany to buy two bottles of water. Our seats for the flight to Heathrow, which were exactly the same as those on the first leg, were the aisle and middle seat of a three-seater by the window. After we got settled, the window seat in our row continued to remain unoccupied and we became rather excited with the prospect of having three seats to ourselves. Then we noticed that about eight whole rows in our section were empty, and kept our fingers crossed that there wasn't a last-minute influx of passengers. When the plane began reversing away from the gate, we gave a silent cheer, as the idea of comfortable sleep on the plane became a reality. After the first meal was served, I popped a sleeping pill. G wasn't feeling tired, so he moved to the empty row behind ours, while I lay down across our three seats and managed, for the first time ever, to sleep on a plane. Hooray! Later on, G found an empty three-seater on the other side of the plane and slept too.

For some reason, our flight was half an hour early landing at Heathrow, and we were vaguely concerned that we might miss Megan. However, we needn't have worried because border control was soooo busy. I went through the UK passport lane, whereas G had to go through the slower "all other countries" queue, which took about fifteen minutes longer. After he got cleared to enter the country, the passport man told him he could have come through with me, as my spouse. That's good to know for future reference! We must have been some of the last people through, as there were only about ten pieces of luggage left on the carousel, and no one else waiting. I was paranoid that someone had nicked our suitcases because we were late, but thankfully they were still there. We loaded up our trolley, walked through the exit gates, and spotted Megan waiting for us. Yay!

Anyway, that's the first part of the trip from Brisbane to Edinburgh, more to follow...

Much love