1-2 June, 2015 – Flights to Europe
Well, here we go again out to Tullamarine for flights to Europe for another adventure of 6+ weeks. We start out with Singapore Airlines and the first leg lands in Singapore at terminal 3. The food on board is OK without being brilliant and hence I did not take any photos. The wine was good and plentiful. I must say that the business class seat was kind of a strange design. Since we did not want to sleep on this leg I did not try the fold out bed although the seat design seemed to preclude it working. A good range of movie viewing options albeit I did not bother.
We land at Terminal 3 and take a bus over to Terminal 2 where our next flight departs which is to be Swiss Air. The lounge in Terminal 2 is quite good with a variety of cold and hot food. After a couple of hours we board our flight. My first impression is that it is an older plane, I might have been wrong but that is the way it seemed. There were quite a number of seats in Business Class meaning that frequently there were queues for the toilets. The food choices were unexceptional and I ordered a steak which was OK. Wine choices were good. After dinner, I eventually pass out for some well needed sleep. I had not set up the lie flat bed but some other kind souls had done that for me. I sleep well in two different batches which mostly passes the time on the very long flight which goes to Zurich. The breakfast in the morning was pretty ordinary. We land in Zurich eventually early in the morning and after going through a security check hit the lounge in Gates D.
The lounge was modern and spacious with good Wifi. I was able to borrow an adapter to enable my laptop to be charged as the in seat power on the last flight did not work. There were a range of cold breakfast items – not my style by any point. After a couple of hours there and a Skype to GB, we board our plane to London via a bus to the inners of the airport. The airplane was an older style “domestic layout” with 4 rows of business class immediately followed by Economy. The flight was OK although again the second breakfast was not my style.
We land at London City Airport which is a new one for me. We get to the immigration area and discover there is a form for us to fill out. By the time we do that, all the other passengers were gone from the immigration area which meant that it was a breeze getting through. Our bags arrive just as we are getting out so things look rosy.
Oops, I spoke too soon. We are staying at an AirBnB place in central London and our host, Evgeny, had arranged for a driver to pick us up. However, when we went out there was no one to greet us and it remained that way. Eventually I called Evgeny and he got back to say that the pick-up had been cancelled and he was not aware of it. He said he would arrange another form of pick-up but it would take some time because of traffic.
We settle in one of the food shops with a glass of wine and sooner than expected Evgeny himself meets us at the airport. We go out to the car, which is a black Mercedes and all seems well. However, there were massive traffic jams in London and the driver did a number of turns to avoid the jams and road closures, not all of them that successful. Finally, after about 2 hours we get to the apartment, the end of a very long journey.
Now, reading the above it would seem that I am whinging just about for everything. And maybe that is true. After all this was flying and that has never been my favourite. But unlike in the past, I did not stress out or get grumpy. Maybe old age has some advantages.
