HERE I AM!

I've arrived safe and sound, and the flight wasn't as horrible as it could have been considering the early signs:

1. I had a middle seat, which usually equals sleep deprivation.
2. My row was directly in front of the toilets, which means I couldn't recline the seat very far at all.
3. I was in between two men, one who was a very quiet and attractive British chap, the other a broad-shouldered, aggressive, ignorant Australian bloke.

During the Sydney-Bangkok leg, the Aussie f*wit was trying to engage me in a conversation about the futility of providing aid to countries that have their own armies (because if they can buy guns they can buy food/sanitation etc) and that he believed any country that accepted aid dollars should cede it's sovereignty over decisions on how to spend the money in its Treasury. Whatever, I just wanted to have a nap.

Early on in the 9 hour flight he blew up because someone was in the toilet for longer than two minutes, which he determined to be the optimum time required to perform the tasks at hand. Then a bit later he got extremely abusive and aggressive with the flight attendants because the seat in front of him reclined back further than it should have and knocked over his drink. This was a serious tirade involving lots of short words, I felt really sorry for the cabin crew and also sorry for myself because the flight was full and they couldn't move him.

Thankfully for everyone he was moved for the Bangkok-London leg so when I moved into his terribly defective seat (which not surprisingly, was fine and comfy), the Quiet Englishman and I had one and a half seats each so I could stretch out and snoooooze. I'm typing this blog from my hostel, where I get 30mins of internet free if I'm lucky enough to see a spare computer. I was just walking out the door to look for an internet cafe when this one became free. Lucky days.

The only other eventful thing to mention is my near asphyxiation on the tube from Heathrow. It was the peak-hour morning crowd on the Piccadilly line, and this woman in front of me started violently waving her Metro around and making stinky-poo faces. A quarter of a millisecond later, the smell hit me too. I think the lady was actually wafting it straight into my nostrils. I don't know who it was, but they seriously need their intestines checked out! In what I assume was a typically British response, everyone else pretended not to notice. But there was definitely more coughing and sniffling than two minutes earlier.

Anyway, I learned how to work the ventilator handles on the carriage and slowly became able to breathe through my nose again. Now I'm about to head out and about into the brisk, sunless London morning and start my first day as a resident. Yay!