My first infringement was to cross over a non-existent line “get
back”, “me?” “Yes you, get back over that line”, “what line?” He looked so angry I decided to keep my mouth
shut.
“Do you have any liquids?” “Only sun block that I bought in
the departure lounge at Heathrow Airport” says me, trying to look old and frail.
“Show me”. I dug into my rucksack. It hid from me, he scowled and I thought “shit,
I had better find this quickly otherwise I’m for the high jump”. Finally, I dragged it out. “Ah ha! Too big, I have to confiscate”, but I
bought it at the airport”, “I don’t care, you are not coming through here with
it”. “OK”, I try to smile sweetly, he looks outraged.
The onward plane to Singapore was an A380-800 capable of
taking up to 853 passengers. It’s not
natural. An object that heavy shouldn’t
be capable of flight. It’s not natural. I had an aisle seat next to a charming French
couple. When he realised I was English
he was delighted. “Now I can practice my
language skills on you.” Great! We had
such a fun time trying to understand each other.
As we neared take off time he started looking around for
spare seats that he and his wife could move to because, as he said, “I am a big
man and need more room”. I finally
twigged that he was actually looking for a seat to move me into and immediately
volunteered. He leapt at my proposal and
pointed out that there was a spare seat just across the aisle “that would be
good because we could still converse with one another”.
Feeling very magnanimous I asked the young man across from
us if that seat was free. “No, I’m just talking to my friend, but that is my
seat”, that meant that he and his friend had an aisle seat each with 2 seats
between them. That didn’t seem fair, but
after my experience with the German I wasn’t about to argue. OK, there was another aisle seat behind him
so I asked the family taking up the other 3 seats if they would mind me joining
them. “Why would you want to do that?”
Oh hang on, there’s a common thread going on here. “Because this gentleman is very tall and
could spread out if I moved” “but what
about my son, you will then make him uncomfortable” The son was about 6 and
skinny, but maybe she was referring to my corpulence and anyway she did have a
point.
When I returned to my seat the first young man asked why I
wasn’t moving. I told him that the
family behind didn’t want me. He replied
with a deadpan face “That’s very unfriendly of them isn’t it?” My NBF then decided to trawl the plane
looking for a suitable seat for me and found one. By this time I was beginning
to feel as though I was in the middle of a chapter of Alice in Wonderland .
Finally I arrived at my hotel exhausted and was shown into a
room that was so small you couldn’t walk around the bed and had to ask for an
upgrade costing another S$40 a night.
Not an auspicious start. However,
after waking at 2.00 am thinking I wouldn’t get back to sleep again, much to my
surprise I did and the next thing I knew was that it was 9.00 am and I had had
the best sleep for years.
Despite all that palaver my first impressions of Singapore
are good. The people at the hotel are delightful, the streets are clean and there
us a general air of optimism about the place.
Today I went on the hop-on hop-off bus and get a feel for things. Tomorrow I might try to get to grips with the
underground train service. Tally
Ho!
Oh! One other thing, I can’t get my pictures to upload
properly. I may have to wait for “an
expert” to help me out and that may be on the ship where wi-fi is exorbitantly expensive. What I’m saying is I am taking photographs,
but whether or not I will be able to post them until I get home is another
matter.
Oh and one other thing, I had a Singapore Sling (S$30 outrageous!) in Raffles and threw my peanut shells on the floor. Another on off the bucket list!
1 comment:
Sounds an interesting flight. I had to laugh at your experience in Frankfurt. Having lived in Germany for several years, the one thing you do not do is challenge a German official. They are the gods you must obey!
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