WEATHER: 22C in Lisbon and 19C in London
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Bag making it through check-in again
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Getting stuck in traffic with my transfer
BUYS OF THE DAY: .80C stamp to get my ink stamp in my Globetrotters book
WORD OF THE DAY: Game plan
Good-bye Lisbon! No sleep in for me this morning, I have a plane to catch! All packed and breakast’ed by 8.40am for my 9am transfer. I am not sure what I was thinking booking my transfer for 9am when my flight didn’t leave till 12.45pm, but at that point I wasn’t sure how far away the airport was, and I guess it is better to be early rather than have to rush. So getting there with just over 3 hours before sounds a bit of a drag, but as soon as I walked in to the terminal I saw the post office, so I waited 15 minutes in line, to see if they would stamp my Globetrotter book. They wouldn’t put an ink stamp in my book without first purchasing a lick lick stamp, so .80c later and I have my Portugal stamp in my book. AWESOME!!!! Now I probably wouldn’t have had time if I had got there 2 hours before right!?
My flight was on the departures board and the check-in counters listed and this is just under 3 hours prior to departure. I have worked out, and it makes sense I guess, that if you are travelling on the national carrier of the country you’re leaving, the better the systems are, the easier it is to check-in and generally the counters are open earlier than 2 hours. To even get to the check-in area we had to show our tickets to get through, once through I self-checked myself in, got to change my seat from an aisle to a window seat and there was no-one waiting in the bag drop line, another good reason for the early bird-ness. I didn’t get to even see the weight of my bag on the scales, the check-in chick was just happy to tag and move it on! Fine by me, but I would have been interested in the weight, out of curiosity.
Another check point for the boarding pass and passport and I was through to the shops and food court. Now as I had around 1.35 hours, I had time to have a shop around, try on 2 rings (that I didn’t buy) and had also had time to have some lunch. I think I like this ‘getting to the airport early’ business. I think it helps that Lisbon’s airport seems like it has been revamped in the shops area and there are plenty of food outlets and plenty of seating. They also offer free trolleys but not free internet. It was 2EUR for 30 minutes, 3EUR for 1 hour and 5EUR for 2 hours. I am still trying to find a Swarovski shop to replace my crystal pen that I think I left in Barcelona. Still no luck at Lisbon’s Airport – the hunt continues. But I did try some perfume and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the smell of Mulgar Cologne by Thierry Mulgar, I gave myself a very good splash of the stuff in the duty free shop, but at this point, I was thinking with my head and I haven’t bought a bottle-yet. I am thinking about space in my bag, and my too big toiletry bag as it is, a large bottle of perfume is the last thing I need. But I will be sorting that out this week, and leaving stuff I am not using and trying to down size to a smaller bag.
I was warned by the check-in chick that my gate 43B was about a 20 minute walk from the eatery, and she wasn’t kidding. So I made sure I set out with enough time for my HIKE to the gate and I got there with 10 minutes to spare. As it turns out, our flight was delayed by ONE HOUR, so all that time I was going on about how great it was to get to the airport early, they extend my airport time and add on an extra hour. They didn’t really tell us why we were late but they did apologize and they made up 25 minutes in the air, even after we had to circle Heathrow for 10 minutes to wait for the approval to land. It was weird to look out the window and see 2 other planes doing the same thing.
I flew TAP Portugal again and I am happy to report I had a larger plane than the jet I was on 3 days ago. The flight was 2 hours and 5 minutes on an A319 aircraft which had a seat configuration of 3 x 3. The seats were roomy, longer seat belts, high arm rests and also high tray tables and the staff seemed friendly enough. I do have to say I saw the most handsome-est male flight attendant today, he was like Fabio from the TV butter ad, but not as cheesy and HOT HOT HOT! So this also helps in the airline rankings for TAP. But all jokes aside I had a great experience with them and it has nothing to do with letting my bag through overweight both times either.
This is the 5th time this trip that I have touched down at London Heathrow. Today I came into Terminal 1. I think the nightmare terminal is terminal 3, where all the major long haul international flights come in. My first time coming from Helsinki into terminal 3 it took me nearly an hour to get through immigration with 600 other people. No such problems today. The landing cards were not given out on the flight, and as there was no queue at immigration, everyone was falling over themselves to fill in the forms as they walked, before a queue could actually form. People are so funny sometimes and there are some dickheads that travel. I had 2 of them behind me on the flight and they were just talking shite, I had to put in my headphones to drown them out!
Even though I am now short the side bag, by the time I got out it was 4.45pm. Hmmm peak hour on the trains. I think I will just do the transfer, as I could imagine nothing worse riding the tube with my bags in peak hour with grumpy people that have spent a day at work and don’t won’t some tourist and all her crap holding them up. So I went to my guys I used before Hotel by Bus, and booked a return transfer for 39GBP. I only had to wait 20 minutes and with a stop at terminal 5 to pick up some others we were on our way into London Central. Well, the traffic was a NIGHTMARE. Between road closures, traffic accidents, ‘lorry’ breakdowns and the opening premier of the new Harry Potter film in Trafalgar Square, it turned all the traffic on its ear. There were 3 drop-offs before me, me being the last and you know how long it fricken took!? TWO AND A HALF HOURS!!! I could have flown back to Lisbon and got back to my Lisbon hotel in that time frame– isn’t that INSANE!!! My poor driver was due to finish at 7pm and I got dropped off at 7.40pm. He said I shouldn’t have been in that drop as I was the only one on the other side of the city and that I should ring and complain. He was quite nice, but 2.5 hours!? It really wasn’t his fault, every time traffic looked horrendous he knew back streets to take to get us out another way. But we made it, and not many people know about Tune Hotel, so it felt kinda cool that I could show him the way once we got to Westminster Abbey, as I know the way from there!!!
So I am now in my new home for 8 nights!! EIGHT nights!!!! The longest I have spent in one place and I think it will be the longest I will spend anywhere out of the 461 nights I am away. It is quite funny; I am in exactly the same room I had back in April – random. So after checking in, I went to the tube station Lambeth North which is across the road from the hotel, so I could get a tube map and work out my plan of attack for tomorrow. I cannot waste any working days while I am here, as it is time for my visa fun to begin. Along with getting my haircut, eyebrows waxed, buying a sleeping bag, visiting the Australia shop (hoping for Twisties and BBQ shapes), new clothes shopping, swapping my voucher for my London Travel card and seeing some of the sights while I am here. Add to that a couple of dinners, a lunch and a theatre show; I am going to be a woman on a mission for the next 8 days!
So I have my day mapped for tomorrow, my game plan, with the tube stations marked and addresses in hand. I feel good that I am organized so first visa off the rank tomorrow will be the Tanzania visa. According to their web site I can get a same day turn around by paying an additional 20GBP, sounds good to me, let’s see if it is actually going to be that easy.
Well I better get some shut-eye for my day tomorrow – will let you know how it goes……. Welcome back to London Town.
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