As the Wind Blows

In the last week I have been through five airports; Rome (Fumicino), London Gatwick, London Heathrow, Dubai International and Beijing Airport. It doesn’t sound like much, but the amount of time spent having to check in (especially if you don’t carry around a portable printer to print off your boarding pass in your suitcase), go through security, board and fly to your destination, then go through security again and wait (im)patiently for your bag to come out of baggage claim, it takes up a considerably amount of time.

What takes even more time is when a whole country decides to have a transportation strike on the day you have to fly out of the country (as if it doesn’t want you to leave and help it’s economy with your tourist dollar). At least I was able to book a later flight out of Rome that actually left and landed on time.

I’ve been through quite a few airports now and they’re all starting to look the same. Though I felt like I was in a giant footy ball at Dubai airport while at Beijing I felt like I was in a giant bird’s nest (just because the roof looks like it’s made from wood). But aside from that, most airports are quite large, so as long you arrive plenty of time ahead of schedule (provided there's no transportation strike) and as you can read decipher the symbols for bus, train, toilet, baggage claim and exit as well as read alphanumeric text you’re going to be fine.

So ‘twas the first time I flew Emirates and as a result in an A380 (double decker planes). It was strangely enough the cheapest flight and who am I to turn down flying with a luxury brand? I was too excited to sneak up to first and business class to see what it was like, because I was too busy trying to decide which out of the hundreds of option of movies and tv shows to watch, salivating over the fancy menu that was handed to me (even though I only was allowed to have one of two options), and getting over how large everything was in general.  After flying EasyJet (like Jetstar) everywhere, any plane would have seemed luxurious in comparison.

What I will remember most though about Emirates is none of the above mentioned competitive advantages of the airline but but they had a complementary issue of Hello! available at Heathrow!! All that time pondering whether I should get a copy in the terminal was totally needless and I’m glad I decided against it. Now I know all about the Duchess of Cambridge’s outfits (seriously, there’s only so many articles they can write before people are going to get over it), about some celebrity wedding in Rome (why wasn’t I invited, I was there!) and how Prince Harry puts his duty as a soldier above his life as a party boy (I wonder what made him so interested in the army in the first place?).

Now my head is filled with brainless things I can relax a bit before I have to jump on another airplane again. If only I could get frequent flyer points for all my contribution to carbon emmissions.