Flight and First Day in Scotland
I had so much last minute stuff to do before leaving that I didn't go to bed until about 3am the night before I left Australia. I got up at 7 and continued to rush getting last minute things done. Li'l Sis and BIL came for a final visit at 7:30 and when I rang Engin (about my phone thing) and Optus about my mobile) I was hold a total of 1hr and 5 minutes between the two of them. I'm leaving the country for goodness sake! NOW is not a good time to be wasting my time on hold!
Harvey Norman had also sold me a faulty laptop surge protector. The part the plug from my laptop plugs into wouldn't accept my laptop plug. It sat precariously balanced with the tips of the prongs just sitting slightly inside, but not able to go in any further. So I had to send mum down on her own to get it exchanged.
"What part doesn't work?" She asked me, not wanting to go on her own.
"The plug on the laptop side. When you plug in the plug it doesn't fit."
"oh."
She came back in 3/4 of an hour or so (less than a 10 minute trip in either direction).
"They said there was nothing wrong it. They tested it and everything."
"Are they mad?" I pulled out the power plug on the kettle since it was the same as on my laptop but my laptop was packed away. And this plug didn't fit EITHER!
"I didn't realise that was what you meant! That's why I wanted you to come with me, you could have explained!"
"I was stuck on hold!"
It's so completely not mum's fault, it's stupid harvey normans. Selling me firstly one faulty surge protector, and then another. out of frustration I pushed the plug into the surge protector as hard as i could and heard a huge SNAP!- and then it fit! Perfectly!
Eek! Did I break it? Or is that what you're meant to do? I didn't have time to take it back to them to find out. The good thing is they have a warranty on all goods that use their surge protects and they'll replace the items up to a value of $55,000. If it doesn't work, they can bloody well pay that.
So I said my teary goodbyes to my sister and we all got in the car and left. I was one of the first people to check in (:D to Fran: I kept saying Log in accidently, and she kept calling me a geek :D).
My first flight to Singapore was uneventful. Takeoff and landing was fine, and they had Gluten-free foods for me (even though the bread they offered me was disgusting, but I don't normally eat bread anyway, so it just quietly went back with my garbage). The in-flight entertainment was fine. There weren't a great selection of movies, but I watched 8 Below (remind me never to watch a sad movie on a plane again, the tears were awful- it's about a scientific team down in antarctica and there's a huge storm so they have to evacuate. There isn't enough room on the helicoptor to evacuate everyone and the 8 sled team dogs at the same time, so they go and have to come back for the dogs. The owner wants to stay with them until the helicoptor comes back, but they won't let him, so he tightens their collars so they can't run away and they leave. During the flight he gets knocked unconscious and two days later he wakes to find noone has gone back for his dogs, and no-one WILL go back for his dogs until next summer!
The poor dogs are on their own for 157 days and it's so incredibly sad. I won't say how many of them make it and how many die, but this guy finally makes it back 157 days later and there's feet of snow packed on top of where they were...
Anyway, a good movie if you like stories about animals and antarctica.. great mix.
Also watched Hoodwinked, that's supposed to be coming to cinema's soon. Advise others to give it a mix. I though Shrek had a terrible storyline, this is worse.
Got to Singapore and had a look around for a few hours before getting on a 747 to London. This is where my fun evaporated.
#1. My In-flight entertainment didn't work, so I was stuck watching channels like on tv, if you come in half way through you miss the first half, and you can't pause anything.
#2. I was in the window seat with two people next to me that slept the whole way. Trying to get out to stretch your legs isn't an option unless you want to wake them up.
#3. I couldn't sleep. Whenever I DID fall asleep, I dreamt about how restricted my long legs were and screaming out in frustration. It made me feel positively sick to not be able to move my legs and for such a long time. TIME WENT SO SLOWLY! AGH! I HATE flying such long distances. Next time I go business class or get a seat at an exit.
Got to London and realised for the first time how huge it was. It provided no information as to which flights were actually where and flights for BA and Qantas were at two different terminals, so I had to take a guess and come back if I took the wrong one. I guessed BA and took the bus to Terminal 1. The only problem was it then took so long to get through all the queues that if I had have been wrong, there would have been no time for me to make it back, as it was, I only made the flight by 5 minutes.
That was lucky.
The flight to Edinburgh was lovely. I could see the ground the whole way and it was checkered with squares of different colours of green, cream, brown and nearly a red colour in other areas. Gorgeous.
I got out of the airport and caught a bus to Waverly Bridge where I was getting picked up by my housemate. On the way I was looking all around enjoying the scenery and --- OMG! That's a CASTLE! Edinburgh I'm guessing! How STUNNING! Right next to the road like that! WOW! I also counted seeing I think 4 of the Edinburgh cows (which I know of from tyro_83) and I've seen another 4 since then.
I got back to my new apartment, had a quick shower and had to head out to get a doona (or duvet) a quilt set, pillow and some food. My housemate is housesitting at his parents house for a few days, so I also needed to know how to get back without getting lost! The good news is that I have broadband internet, and my computer is up and running. Bad news is I need one of those little mini routers, and I have 3 of them at home in Australia. Not nice having to go and buy another. But if I do, I should be able to connect my engin in my room. I still need to find out the name of the router so I can allow the engin.
Anyway, it's 20 to 10 in the morning, and I have a lot of things to do. I have to go buy a simcard for my phone and I need to contact my recruitment companies and get a bank account.
I've also been invited to dinner tonight, so I have to figure out how to get there!
Wish me luck (and a sudden brain download of Bus knowledge! :D)