The crazy way back to Europe

--
As with all good things in life, they all come to an end and so did this trip. It was time to pack everything and flight back to Europe...

Although things didn't turned out to be as easy as that... My first flight was with Air Asia (I believe it is a Malayan company), it is pretty much like Ryanair or easyjet. Excellent for travelling throughout Asia on a budget and if you wanna splash out like I did, for 8 extra euros you can book an emergency exit seat with all the extra leg room you may dream of. :-)

My first flight was Phuket - Singapore, so I had an early morning and tried to fit as much breakfast as I could in my stomach. I have the theory that when you are hopping from airport to airport you never know when or what you are going to eat so it pays off to go well fed to start with. :-)

My main concern was my next connecting flight. Singapore - London. The problem being that my flight was supposed to leave at 23:59 and my previous flight would get to the airport at 12:00 hence a nice 12 hour wait. I thoght I would get grandchildren while waiting for my next connection but the Singapore airport turned out to be better than expected and if you've seen the movie "The terminal" you know you can make any airport your own home with just a few adjustments. :-)

This airport is the first one I see in the world offering free wifi and free internet to all passengers, all you had to do was going to the information desk and ask for a username and password and voila! you were in the cyberspace.

I've also noticed an area with no people around and a couple of free plugs...so free electricity and free internet, what else can you ask for?! 

So I spent the first hours quite entertained working on a couple of blog entries, watching some films, recharging my laptop and esentially making time until Aídas flight and in all that time I couldn't help to notice this:

Believe it or not, this is a motorised post office!, that's right, you don't need to go and buy some stamps anymore...the stamps come to you and you don't need to go and find a mailbox....the mailbox comes and finds you. :-) Modern times...

Aída´s flight made it on time, no delays so while we waited for her connecting flight to London (which departed one hour earlier than mine) we took the oportunity to catch up and eat some chocolate! for the good all times...we couldn't find an ice-cream parlour as we wanted but we can't really complaint.

It's was great to have a last catch up and get the latest gossip from everybody else back in Australia and also to have yet another chance to say goodbye to Aída who put up with me for at least 3 months!! You cannot imagine the amount of times I asked her to take a photo of me with something for the blog...all those photos where I am on the photo and she's not...chances are, she took the photo...hundreds of them! she got a bit fed up at times but didn't complain...too much...

Unfortunately, our last photo together didn't come out very well

Relax, it's not your eyesight it's the photo!

When the time came, she got into her terminal and off she went to London. By the time she got there she had another connecting flight to Madrid and from there yet another one to Tenerife. In my case, I had the one to London and then in London I had to switch airports.

Landed at Heathrow, went out and took the tube to Victoria, caught the train to Gatwick and boarded yet another flight, this time to Porto where my father and brother were waiting for me to drive me back home (well, my temporary home, that is...)

After that I spent one week in bed! I was sick as a parrot!

But in case you are wondering...yes, it was all worth it! :-)

I'm planning on doing one or two more posts before giving the keyboard some well deserved rest (until my next trip) but I would like to take this oportunity to thank everyone for reading the blog. :-) It's very motivating knowing that you are not just writing for yourself and that somebody, somewhere in the world, is reading it. We've managed to surpass the 4000 visits. That is far beyond what I would have expected when I started.

Thank you to everyone who's been travelling with me through my blog!

--