It is time to leave London and move my 60kg to another
country. After this leg I only have one
more check-in to worry about and then I am finally in Kenya. If I am to do any further travel from there I
will either have my own place or know of a few people that will be able to look
after my things for me. I did check the
baggage allowance of Qatar Airways, the next and last airline, and there was an
option to pay for an additional bag and it seemed reasonable, so it is just a
matter of getting it now to Heathrow and then a taxi in Barcelona to the hotel and
I am nearly there.
I was up at 5.40am this morning, which was earlier than
the alarm, but I figured I was up, so I may as well finish the packing, get ready
and just head to the airport. It is hard
to comprehend that the train to the airport only takes 15 minutes. I remember last year I was doing the shuttle
transfer by minivan and the journey would take anything from 1.5 hours to the
worst ever when we were stuck in Harry Potter Premier traffic that took me
nearly 3 hours to get to the hotel.
CRAZY. And then when they came to
pick me up it was always 3.5 hours before your flight. Now I was leaving 2.5 hours before and that
was generous as I was allowing some snafu time.
I also figured I may need some extra time walking with my bags and I
tell you what I did struggle. They are
heavy and they are awkward, it’s not so much my large backpack aka ‘the monster’
once that is on it really isn’t an issue, but it looks the worst as it does
look massive, but it is the small backpack on my front and the red gym back is
just a funny shape where I can’t quite reach to get it on the wheelie bag, so I
had to walk with it in my hand and I had to stop several times of the 400m to
take a break and keep swapping hands.
Add this to me all rugged up for the cold, working up a sweat and people
steering to get out of my way I finally made it to Paddington Station, locating
the platform, which thankfully was right at the front and having 7 minutes to
buying a ticket for the next departure.
It wasn’t a massive drama if I missed this train as they depart every 15
minutes, but I struggled with a 20GBP note, it wouldn’t take, so I tried my
credit card and that didn’t work and I was about to pick up all my gear and try
another machine when my card was accepted and I had my ticket with 3 minutes to
spare. The first carriage was business
class but the one after that had a disabled section at the front of the
carriage which was perfect for all my crap, so I was able to drop it all and be
able to sit next to it without having to pack it in racks or get it out of
people’s way. Phew…… that was going to
be the hardest part of the day, as there are trollies at Heathrow and a taxi in
Barcelona I was home and hosed….. well so I thought……..
The train to Heathrow is 15 minutes for terminals 1, 2
and 3. Terminal 5, and my final
destination is a further 4 minutes on the same train. I think paying the 19GBP is worth every pound
for the stress free and ease of getting to the airport. And I was right, there was a trolley right
out of the turnstiles, so I loaded up, felt like I had just shed 60kg, oh that’s
right, I had and then made my way via the lift to departures. I know I have said this before but T5 at
Heathrow is amazing. All sparkly and new
with plenty of staff to help with your pre-check-in which is mandatory or to
ask questions. I wanted to check-in, but
figured with my broken bag I needed to get that issue solved, so I asked one of
the staff members about bag wrapping and there was one at the other end of the
terminal and I also asked about buying a new bag and it was the same
company. So I made my way down and the line-up
for the bag wrapping was seriously 11 people deep with all of them having at
least 2 bags each. There was only one
guy there and he would wrap and then go to the counter to take the
payment. The poor thing! Flip that though, I wasn’t going to wait that
long, so I perused their bags and I actually found the perfect bag, it is cabin
approved, it’s got those strong zips and was about the same size, different
shape, as the one I was replacing and was actually good quality. I figured whether I bought the bag here or in
Barcelona I had to get one, so when the dude came to the counter to process the
next payment I jumped in and bought the bag and I was out of there leaving all
those poor people still standing in line.
For interest the wrapping was 7GBP and I bought my bag for 35GBP. So with new bag in hand, I found a bench and
proceeded to unpack the gym bag and load the new bag, and it all fit
perfect. Problem solvered.
From here I went to the check-in kiosks to check myself
in and there came up with an error and I had to make my way to the ‘special
assistance’ counter. Man do they have
camera’s there alerting staff of the amount of luggage or something? It may have been a blessing as I was going to
have to pay for the additional bag and probably would have been referred down
there anyway. As it turned out it was
just my passport number wasn’t in the booking and I popped on my first bag and
it was 11.9kg and the monster was 24.5kg and luckily he let me though with that
as I was only supposed to have 23kg, but them the other [bag I had paid for was
well under weight. Either way I paid my
40GBP and it wasn’t till I was through security that I forgot to show my RTW
ticket to try and avoid the extra charge.
You goose!!!! Never mind. I am just glad he didn’t ask me to weigh my
hand luggage as I rekon I was packing 23kg between the 3 bags I was taking hand
luggage. I must say I have never had an
issue with British Airways; they have always been so nice, so much so they have
a BIG world odyssey tick from me. I had
no issues at security, the line up didn’t seem to be super busy and then I was
airside and it was only 9.15am. My
flight wasn’t till 11.20am, but pre-boarding was starting at 10.45am, so I
really only had 1.5 hours to have a look around, grab some breakfast and to
just chillax. My arms still felt like
jelly after carrying my bags, and I decided to just grab a sandwich and just to
find a seat till my gate was allocated and I could make my way there. It is always so busy here at T5. People all scurrying everywhere, always lined
up in shops and food outlets. They must
make a packet of money out here, nothing like a captive audience paying exuberant
prices for things (besides duty free stuff).
The flight was called on time, we all bordered like human
beings and we left on time as well which can be a miracle at times with traffic
control sometimes holding up flights as they arrange their flight plans, but we
were slotted in and before I knew it and with a tear in my eye we were in the
air and I was one more step closer to Kenya.
2 weeks today and I will be touching down in Kenya. My new life-what-ever it holds. This was the last section before that and it
terrifies me. I am entering the unknown
and it was also time to let Minalu know that I wasn’t coming and that I was
going to try Kenya first. I am just glad
that he hadn’t done too much work for my arrival, as I would have felt like a
real heal, but I do need to let him know that I wasn’t going to come. This was a little sad for me as well-being
honest with myself that I didn’t have a point to prove to anyone about keeping
Ethiopia as my country of choice and maybe at the start I was thinking that
things with Zeme could have worked out.
But I am a better person that firstly to think that I would ever get
back with someone like Zeme and secondly that I had anything to prove to
anyone. I need to go where I will feel
safe, have the support of the Embassy should I need it and a country that is a
little more advanced than what Ethiopia can offer me at this point. I’m not saying no forever to Ethiopia, but I
need to make my own contacts there, have my African feet for a while and then I
can decide what and where I should be, and I need to pass this onto
Minalu. The flight was only ¾ full and I
had my row free and I had my wonderful window seat. The flight time was 1 hour and 40 minutes and
we were sitting on an A321 with a configuration of 3 x3. We were fed a wrap and a drink, offered duty
free and then with some wonderful scenery coming into Barcelona we landed at
3.25pm local time. We had to wind our
watches forward an hour.
Barcelona International Airport looks new. After passing through immigration, locating a
trolley and waiting a little longer than normal for my bags I was cleared
through the green channel of customs and I was out. The airport is well laid out and well signed
so I followed the signs to the taxis-where there was an electronic door that wouldn’t
open. There was a staff member standing
there talking to another passenger in French and when he finished he said in
English that the taxis were on strike, well from the airport, they were still
running in town and I was told I would have to take the A1 or A2 bus into
town. WHAT! ARE YOU SERIOUS? Well I didn’t say that to him, but that is
what I was thinking in my head. Well I
had no choice, so with my trolley I now followed the bus signs-thinking it
would be a bus with an undercarriage where we could pack in all our bags and
then jump on but I guess the key word was BUS and not COACH and as I walked
down the not working escalators and losing my bags twice off the trolley I saw
that it was one of those airport busses with luggage racks and it them dawned
on me how the hell was I going to get all my gear onto a BUS!!! Well it just had to be done, so I stood in line,
with people behind me thinking the same thing and I rounded the last bend I had
to lose the trolley and I just had to kick the monster along new bag on my bag,
red backpack on my front and my bluebag in my spare hand. I thought I was doing well, getting my money
out before getting to the counter to hand it over to find out I had grabbed the
pounds and not the euro. DOH!!!!!!!!! So I had to struggle to get my purse back out
to get the right currency and then make 2 trips to the bus because I just
couldn’t load it all in one go. What a
nightmare and something I could ever foresee, a taxi strike of all things. Didn’t they know I was arriving with 60kg today? F#@uckers.
So with my 4 bags stored all over the bus I was able to find a seat for
the 35 minute drive into the city. I am
thankful that Beth had booked me into a hotel on one of the most popular roads
in Barcelona, Las Ramblas-everyone has heard of that, and that I wasn’t booked
in some little obscure street that I would be unable to pronounce and nobody
knew-so that is the only positive thing I could pull from this situation at
this point. As we pulled into Plaza Cataluña,
we passed Las Ramblas, so I knew where I had to go, so I was the last one off
the bus with my 4 bags as it pulled away and I found myself in the heart of
BARCELONA…..with 60kg of baggage.
Well I had come this far, so I loaded up again and made
my way to Las Ramblas which just happened to run to my left and also to my
right. So I stood out of the path of
pedestrian traffic and looked for building numbers and I could see on the far
side of the road 129 but I couldn’t see numbers on either side to work out
which was 33 was going to be. So I asked
one of the taxi drivers that were parked at a rank and he pointed left. Man I hope he understood I was after 33…. So
picking up my bags I turned left and kept a beady eye on the street numbers and
saw indeed they were getting smaller in numerical order and I was heading in
the right direction. To get from 129 to
33 took longer than I thought and if I had of realised I was going to walk half
of the Ramblas to get there I would have taken a taxi from the bus drop off
point. Bloody hell-it was forever away
and I really struggled. I had a massive
bruise already showing up in my upper arm from my struggles this morning! I had people staring at me again and I just
have to remember they don’t know my story and what I am doing, so let them
stare and then the bloody slow walkers in front of me and people who don’t know
how to walk in a straight line were frustrating but with a few stops for a rest
and hand swapping bags I made it 35 minutes after getting off the bus. I had arrived! I was sweaty, my arms felt light and I was
knackered, but I had arrived and safely.
The reception guy was super nice and for a second it
looked like they didn’t have my reservation, now that would have been funny,
but my name had just been spelt wrong, I was given my room key and like before
I had to make 2 trips to get all my bags in my room. I did ask about luggage storage and he told
me on the 1st floor that could be done tomorrow. SWEET.
I checked the Wi-Fi, updated my status and before I got too comfy and lost
all energy I decided to go out for an early dinner so I could chillax back at
the hotel. On my way out with just my
purse in my hand the reception guy called me back in and told me to hold my
purse tight to my body and to loop the strap around my wrist and to be
careful. I think I may have forgotten
just how dangerous Barcelona was and when I got back to my room there were 2
messages saying I should be thankful I wasn’t pickpocketed while I was
struggling with all my bags. I don’t think
even if I was a professional thief that I would have come anywhere near me
either. I think I would have been too
tricky…... See another positive! With all that said I do enjoy Barcelona. It has a lot of things to do with beaches to
visit, museums and churches, mountains and shopping. I have 3 nights here when I get back, so I
will get out and about when I return.
There are literally only 3 English channels out of 100
and like any country you visit they are all news channels. I guess that’s not a bad thing as I have no
idea what is happening in the world and it was here I found about the bus fires
that are ravaging the east coast of Australia.
I knew that the temperatures were high due to Facebook statuses but didn’t
know there were fires. So my thoughts to
my fellow countrymen and I hope that people listen to authorities and that the
plans they have in place from the last fires that took so many lives work out. My blog went down the wayside and I just used
the time to reflect and read. It is the
7th of January and according to my plans of last year I should have
been in Ethiopia now. I haven’t given
myself much time to think about that-I have honestly moved on-but I still get a
pang the way things ended with Zeme and I have come to second guess my judge of
character, I am normally pretty good with that sort of thing and never in a
million years would I have believed I would be blindsided the way I was. But we live and learn and at the end of the
day I did some really good things-I am the better person and if they were misconstrued
by some-one else then they are the ones to have to deal with themselves and I
just have to believe that I did good to bad people.
My cruise starts tomorrow and I am a little apprehensive
as cruises really aren’t geared for single travellers, really. I mean you can get out there and make it what
you want and I am going in with a plan to chill, self-reflect and just
appreciate some creature comforts of the western world before I start my new
life in a continent that could only dream or read about in books (if they are
lucky) of what I am going to be doing over the next 9 days.
Welcome to Barcelona.
No comments:
Post a Comment