June 2009: The month I hiked along the Great Wall of China, gaped at the Terracotta Warrior Army in Xi'an, visited Windsor Castle and the Tower of London, saw the dawn of the summer solstice from inside the stone circle at Stonehenge, sat on Centre Court at Wimbledon, ate Swiss chocolate in the country where it was produced, visited the Pyramids in Egypt, watched the banks of the Nile slip past from the sundeck of a cruise ship, and explored 3,500 year old tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Not a bad way to spend 30 days...
I've been a very busy camper since flying out of Australia on the 31st of May. I think I'll start by outlining my escape from the land of Oz, then write later about my overseas adventures.
Come fly, come fly away...
I have to say, it was a huge pleasure to finally board the return flight to the UK that I had booked last September. During the intervening months there were many times when I doubted I would be able to make that flight, thanks to the imbecilic fumblings of the Home Office. In the end, it was my own imbecilic fumblings that almost caused me to miss the flight.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the bumbling UK bureaucrats had mistakenly sent my passport to Sydney, so I flew there first, collected my passport, and then drove a hire car to Canberra. I had a bunch of things to do there, one of the most important being to secure a visa for China. The Chinese embassy offers a same-day visa collection as long as you submit your application before 9:30am. Because of the timing of my arrival, I had to submit the visa application on a Friday morning. Then I went off to get a haircut.
Now, I knew the visa could be collected by 12pm, but as the minutes turned into hours my hairdresser didn't seem to develop any sense of urgency at all. After covering my head with chemicals she ran away, and seemed to forget I was there. Probably off with the trendy people. It was getting closer and closer to 12pm, and I was trying to remember whether the embassy re-opened after lunch. If I could collect my passport later in the afternoon I'd have plenty of time to receive a cut and colour so stylish that my friends in London would pass out with envy the minute they saw me (obviously the ideal). In my mind, I could still see the sign on the wall of the Chinese embassy: it said "Opening Hours", with "09:00-12:00" written beneath it and another line underneath that which my annoyingly non-photographic memory couldn't picture. Was it the afternoon opening hours? 13:00-16:00? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember.
I was getting a bit antsy, so the next time I caught sight of the hairdresser I grabbed her and tried to impress upon her the urgency of my leaving. She sent me to the basin where the dye would be washed out. Several long minutes (ok I know a minute can't actually be long but it seemed that way) later an apprentice came along to start. Halfway through it became clear that something had not gone according to plan. The head stylist was pulled over and many more minutes passed while they fussed around and rubbed something into my head. I had no idea what was happening. Despite being fairly confident I could collect my passport after 1pm, (that must have been afternoon opening hours on the sign) I was getting more and more agitated.
Once free of the basin, I told the hairdresser I didn't have time for my hair to be dried, ignored the look of shock on her face, practically threw the money at the till, and raced out the door with water still dripping down my back. The drive to the Embassy should have taken about 15 minutes - I think I did it in around 8. During the whole drive my head was thinking, "Why on earth are you speeding? You've missed the early slot, pick it up later" while my foot had other plans and was planted firmly on the accelerator. I wasn't consciously panicked, but my body was behaving as though it was. Very strange.
I (almost) screeched into the dirt car park and raced through the embassy doors at 11.59am. While I felt satisfied in an adrenaline-fuelled kind of way, I still felt a little silly about my melodramatic exit from the hairdressers and super-speedy trip to the Embassy. That is, until I looked again at the sign that my mind's eye had been trying to picture for the last half hour. It did indeed say "Opening Hours", with the line below reading "09:00-12:00". However the line underneath that didn't say "13:00-16:00" as I had assumed (but not seen in my mental picture). It said "MON-FRI".
Whoa.
I was literally 30 seconds away from having the ever-bureaucratic Chinese close the doors and lock away my passport until 9:00am Monday: more than 24 hours after my international flight was scheduled to depart from Sydney. I was a bit stunned. All morning I had been confused by the involuntary panic that had driven me to hurry the hairdresser along, cut away early and speed along the streets. But it seemed my subconscious had remembered the bottom line of the sign and forced me to act even though my conscious mind didn't know why. Would've been a whole lot simpler from the start if my subconscious had just let my conscious mind read the bloody sign. Don't they know how to share?
Oh well, at least it all worked out. What else could go wrong now? Um...
I drove back to Sydney on Saturday and stayed with some friends in Lane Cove. My flight was the next morning, and the plan was to drive to the airport and return the hire car, leaving plenty of time to do a bit of duty-free shopping and board my flight to Hong Kong. I had to be at the airport 2 hours early, but I added a little extra time in case there were any issues with the hire car, then added a little more in case I got lost or traffic was unexpectedly bad (at 5am the latter wasn't likely but the former certainly was). In the end, the gods of fortune smiled on me. The traffic was non-existent, and I cruised to the airport without making a single wrong turn. The hire car return was also quicker than expected, so I arrived at the departure terminal with plenty of time to spare, looking forward to wandering around and buying a few last-minute items of Australiana (think Tim Tams and Triple J CDs, not koalas and kangaroos).
So far, so good. I walked into the departure terminal and looked at the screens to find out which counter was checking in passengers on my flight. But my flight wasn't there. That was a bit weird, as I could see an earlier Cathay Pacific flight on there, and one a few hours later. Where was mine? I walked over to the information desk and asked which counter I should use to check-in to my flight, and was promptly told that my flight had been cancelled.
Uh, excuse me?
"Don't worry," the woman continued, "we've booked you on the earlier flight".
I didn't even have time to yell at her about the impracticality of cancelling a flight and re-booking to an EARLIER flight without advising the passenger (were they relying on my psychic powers to ensure I arrived at the airport 4 hours early?) because the luggage check-in closed in 10 minutes' time and boarding commenced immediately after that. I raced to the counter, checked in (was allocated a crummy middle seat, no surprise there), twitched impatiently in the security queue, then ran up to the boarding gate to arrive just in time to board. Whew.
If I hadn't left my friend's house extra-early, or if I had made one wrong turn on the trip to the airport, I wouldn't have arrived in time to make my flight. That was twice that the Universe had conspired to ensure that I successfully made this trip back to the UK. I don't know what it is about things happening in threes, but 'they' helped me one more time, as I also nearly missed the final leg of my flight from Hong Kong to London. But I'll tell you about that bit next time...
I've been a very busy camper since flying out of Australia on the 31st of May. I think I'll start by outlining my escape from the land of Oz, then write later about my overseas adventures.
Come fly, come fly away...
I have to say, it was a huge pleasure to finally board the return flight to the UK that I had booked last September. During the intervening months there were many times when I doubted I would be able to make that flight, thanks to the imbecilic fumblings of the Home Office. In the end, it was my own imbecilic fumblings that almost caused me to miss the flight.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the bumbling UK bureaucrats had mistakenly sent my passport to Sydney, so I flew there first, collected my passport, and then drove a hire car to Canberra. I had a bunch of things to do there, one of the most important being to secure a visa for China. The Chinese embassy offers a same-day visa collection as long as you submit your application before 9:30am. Because of the timing of my arrival, I had to submit the visa application on a Friday morning. Then I went off to get a haircut.
Now, I knew the visa could be collected by 12pm, but as the minutes turned into hours my hairdresser didn't seem to develop any sense of urgency at all. After covering my head with chemicals she ran away, and seemed to forget I was there. Probably off with the trendy people. It was getting closer and closer to 12pm, and I was trying to remember whether the embassy re-opened after lunch. If I could collect my passport later in the afternoon I'd have plenty of time to receive a cut and colour so stylish that my friends in London would pass out with envy the minute they saw me (obviously the ideal). In my mind, I could still see the sign on the wall of the Chinese embassy: it said "Opening Hours", with "09:00-12:00" written beneath it and another line underneath that which my annoyingly non-photographic memory couldn't picture. Was it the afternoon opening hours? 13:00-16:00? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember.
I was getting a bit antsy, so the next time I caught sight of the hairdresser I grabbed her and tried to impress upon her the urgency of my leaving. She sent me to the basin where the dye would be washed out. Several long minutes (ok I know a minute can't actually be long but it seemed that way) later an apprentice came along to start. Halfway through it became clear that something had not gone according to plan. The head stylist was pulled over and many more minutes passed while they fussed around and rubbed something into my head. I had no idea what was happening. Despite being fairly confident I could collect my passport after 1pm, (that must have been afternoon opening hours on the sign) I was getting more and more agitated.
Once free of the basin, I told the hairdresser I didn't have time for my hair to be dried, ignored the look of shock on her face, practically threw the money at the till, and raced out the door with water still dripping down my back. The drive to the Embassy should have taken about 15 minutes - I think I did it in around 8. During the whole drive my head was thinking, "Why on earth are you speeding? You've missed the early slot, pick it up later" while my foot had other plans and was planted firmly on the accelerator. I wasn't consciously panicked, but my body was behaving as though it was. Very strange.
I (almost) screeched into the dirt car park and raced through the embassy doors at 11.59am. While I felt satisfied in an adrenaline-fuelled kind of way, I still felt a little silly about my melodramatic exit from the hairdressers and super-speedy trip to the Embassy. That is, until I looked again at the sign that my mind's eye had been trying to picture for the last half hour. It did indeed say "Opening Hours", with the line below reading "09:00-12:00". However the line underneath that didn't say "13:00-16:00" as I had assumed (but not seen in my mental picture). It said "MON-FRI".
Whoa.
I was literally 30 seconds away from having the ever-bureaucratic Chinese close the doors and lock away my passport until 9:00am Monday: more than 24 hours after my international flight was scheduled to depart from Sydney. I was a bit stunned. All morning I had been confused by the involuntary panic that had driven me to hurry the hairdresser along, cut away early and speed along the streets. But it seemed my subconscious had remembered the bottom line of the sign and forced me to act even though my conscious mind didn't know why. Would've been a whole lot simpler from the start if my subconscious had just let my conscious mind read the bloody sign. Don't they know how to share?
Oh well, at least it all worked out. What else could go wrong now? Um...
I drove back to Sydney on Saturday and stayed with some friends in Lane Cove. My flight was the next morning, and the plan was to drive to the airport and return the hire car, leaving plenty of time to do a bit of duty-free shopping and board my flight to Hong Kong. I had to be at the airport 2 hours early, but I added a little extra time in case there were any issues with the hire car, then added a little more in case I got lost or traffic was unexpectedly bad (at 5am the latter wasn't likely but the former certainly was). In the end, the gods of fortune smiled on me. The traffic was non-existent, and I cruised to the airport without making a single wrong turn. The hire car return was also quicker than expected, so I arrived at the departure terminal with plenty of time to spare, looking forward to wandering around and buying a few last-minute items of Australiana (think Tim Tams and Triple J CDs, not koalas and kangaroos).
So far, so good. I walked into the departure terminal and looked at the screens to find out which counter was checking in passengers on my flight. But my flight wasn't there. That was a bit weird, as I could see an earlier Cathay Pacific flight on there, and one a few hours later. Where was mine? I walked over to the information desk and asked which counter I should use to check-in to my flight, and was promptly told that my flight had been cancelled.
Uh, excuse me?
"Don't worry," the woman continued, "we've booked you on the earlier flight".
I didn't even have time to yell at her about the impracticality of cancelling a flight and re-booking to an EARLIER flight without advising the passenger (were they relying on my psychic powers to ensure I arrived at the airport 4 hours early?) because the luggage check-in closed in 10 minutes' time and boarding commenced immediately after that. I raced to the counter, checked in (was allocated a crummy middle seat, no surprise there), twitched impatiently in the security queue, then ran up to the boarding gate to arrive just in time to board. Whew.
If I hadn't left my friend's house extra-early, or if I had made one wrong turn on the trip to the airport, I wouldn't have arrived in time to make my flight. That was twice that the Universe had conspired to ensure that I successfully made this trip back to the UK. I don't know what it is about things happening in threes, but 'they' helped me one more time, as I also nearly missed the final leg of my flight from Hong Kong to London. But I'll tell you about that bit next time...
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