It must be two middle aged sisters traveling together or perhaps the ' naive strangers abroad sign' that we transmit but we have already had the most kind encounters with people and it is only hours into departure.
Day Zero saw us ensconced in the bar of the Mercure Hotel dining on tempuri fish and chips and enjoying a well earned (after weeks of frenzied, harried work and servitude to the lame one with whom I reside) glass or two or three of riesling.
There we were entertaining the residents with our seating indecision (table too high, chair too low, TV too dominant, needed another two chairs for Brett and Marnie) which started conversation with at least three tables, and encouraged our extraordinarily flamboyant barman , who scolded us for disappearing without our dinner number. He was great fun and by the end of the evening was mixing a special cocktail for Mary Ann - bailies ,frangelica, cointreau, cream - exquisitely presented with great ceremony and banter.
This morning as we waited in the foyer, we encountered Jock from Johanesburg - his plane had been detained and he was off to Auckland for a job interview. Fortunately, at the last moment he decided not to share our taxi which had absolutely no room for baggage - the boot was filled with 'gas .....' and the spare tyre.Consequently, the baggage traveled as first class passengers and we were squeezed in the back with the second suitcase. now if we had been a family of four? This probably the right moment to refer to my sister's packing - enormous suitcase, weighed on at 28 kegs - imagine the weight on the return !
Jock spoke to us of South Africa, its beauty and changing times. He believes the world will need the next generation for social and economic change to really occur. Actually, he spoke of entrenched paradigms which made me smile as it is a phrase common to my classroom.
And now having walked the length of economy, squeezing between capacious aisles and stumbling over various extruding body parts, we have chatted at length with Emma and Matthew, the stewardess / steward who enjoyed the distraction of advising us on Dubai and Bangkok.
By the way, the film, "The Men who stare at goats" (psychic soldiers in Iraq) is a only to watch if you are being held captive in economy class, and now for a complete change I think I'll turn to The Last Station (Tolstoy's last days - which was a fascinating read and I hadn't realized is now a film) and then Robin Hood and Mother and Daughters ......
But perhaps first I should finally read my itinerary - apparently we do not arrive back until the 27th October, of course I believed the 25th to be arrival time. So much for thinking that I would have a few recovery days before resuming school -
Amanda if you are reading this and free on that day any chance of an airport pick up? -
Ah well the best made plans .....
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