Well, here we go... The day is finally upon me where I get to leave NZ again and make some new adventures, memories and run one of the biggest events of my life.
Cam picked me up around 12pm and drove me to the airport, he was surprised with how little I have packed, but I'm sure I have all I need, although I did remove a bunch of stuff which aibhad hoped to bring... Pack light was the end goal as I'm going to have to cart everything around with me. After a 30 minute wait in the queue, my bag was checked and my boarding pass was in hand. Now was time to queue in customs for what seemed like an hour, but in reality it was only about 20 minutes, I don't know why, but for some reason I always feel a like nervous going through customs, afraid they will pull me aside for no reason at all.
After Customs and Duty Free were out of the way it was time to relax before my flight. All and all I didn't really have much time to relax. I sat and finished off a blog that should have been posted back near the start of the year, but all good things take time.
I boarded the plane, as I walked down the isle counting the seats ahead of me to work out that I had the last row... Oh man, this meant a few things: 1, I would be one of the last off, 2. My seat won't recline and 3. I was next to the toilets. Jammed in between a couple of people didn't make the experience much better as I could relax as I sat there sat upright trying not to lean to any particular side to try get a little more comfortable.
The movie selection was very limited, having seen most of the movies in their collection, I decided to watch a movie called Simulant... Definitely not a high quality movie, despite there being a number of known actors in it, kind of reminded me of an episode of Black Mirror where the wife's husband dies and she ends up buying an AI version of him. After that it was time to try some new shows, I settled in on one called Fire Country. Despite there being 22 aired episodes, the airline had 2, both of which I watched and enjoyed, but now left waiting and wondering if my next flight on a different airline will happen to have the other episodes.
With a 3hr layover in Brisbane I decided to get a real meal before I had to sit on plane to Dubai for the next 14 hours. Options were rather limited, so I settled on fish and chips as the other options were not enticing my taste buds, nor did I feel the need to overindulge on a burger.
I made my way down to my departure gate, which was honestly the furthest gate they could have put us at, the only bonus of this was it gave me a chance to work off some of that meal and get some exercise in after sitting dormant on my flight to Brisbane. More and more people slowly made their way down to the gate as we all waited to board, what had looked like would be a rather empty flight soon began to look like it would be a rather large flight, and judging by the seat I had on the ticket, I'm sure that was going to be the case.
I swear my travel agent does it on purpose, I got another flight sitting down the back of the plane... This time an isle seat which wasn't too bad, it gave the ability to get up and stretch my legs a lot on the flight, and the fact that I rarely sleep on international flights gave the bonus to the guy next to me who often wanted to get up and stretch his legs as well. Thankfully the movie selection was a lot better, although I did find I was on the spot where I just really didn't feel like watching most of the movies that were on offer, but did end up falling back on a few of the oldies but goodies.
Last Sentinel was the first movie I watched, I hadn't seen it before, but I'd probably give it a 5 out of 10. After that disappointing choice I felt it was time to settle in an watch an old classic... Close Encounters of the Third Kind, followed by The Dark Night Rises, TopGun: Maverick and then a newish one called The Locksmith.
Over the entire flight I managed to get about one to maybe one and a half hours sleep, with still another 3 and a bit hour layover and another 7ish hour to go.
Landing in Dubai to a cool 33 degrees, then again, I'm in an air conditioned building so that really doesn't have an affect on me, but in fairness, it's just after 5am in the morning. Like the last airport, the decided to put the plane in the furthest location... Well, almost, there were like 2 other gates past it, but it did feel like a half hour walk to get there. I will admit, Dubai airport does do things big, I don't know how many duty free spots I counted on the walk, and those aren't exactly small either.
I think I'll leave this blog here as my next flight will be taking me to Geneva, so I'll no doubt be posting up something on that as well.