Flights, sights and other elements of the journey

Pic at some airport - which? - I can't remember!

Ok I have actually lost track of time and largely like that… but for now let me go back in time and recount the bits of my journey I remember - unfortunately in the sleep deprived haze that was flying for me, I didn’t keep iPhone notes for this phase.

Any hoo – caught train to Changi then headed for the underground basement to catch bus to “budget airport” – second class citizens but still efficient and a BIG thumbs up to have a massage stall right near the transit gates – best way to spend the last of my Singapore dollars.

Flight to Bangkok was packed. Sigh. And I got the seat next to a young couple who played games on their iPhone all the way – with volume up (I am an easily irritated/anxious flyer)… She was irritating as she squealed girlishly every time she shot something (ie constantly) She did however have the most amazing manicure finger nails. Unlike the run-of-the-mill painted flowers hers were 3D – like the icing flowers of a wedding cake had been glued to her nails. Bizzarre.

I Bangkok came to regret wearing closed shoes as feet had swollen and blisters were forming as I schlepped from on end of the airport to the other with luggage. At last dumped my stuff headed and had a meal (budget airlines do not provide such luxury) filled my water bottle and waited til 11pm for flight to Zurich to board.

Another packed to the rafters flight. Got to seat to find man (from now on to be referred to as Pig-of-a-Man ) playing his phone – volume on – and his stuff sprawled on my seat. He moved stuff (phew) turned off phone (phew) and promptly fell asleep well before flight took off. I’d say phew but he fucken snored like a band-saw felling a fucken forest! And continued that way most of the flight – he also sat spread leg (invading my zone) and randomly rocked (?) his legs (did I mention I am an irritable traveller?). SO I got earplugs (at one point I forgot I had them in and then panicked cos I thought I was going deaf!) but still barely slept – probs a total of two of the ensuing 11hours!

Arrived a little shattered and disorientated in Zurich. When I got hand luggage down discovered my water had leaked – yeecks. Had to catch a train for connecting flight – all very efficient. But weird. On the train – unless I was hallucinating – they started playing some dirge-kinda funereal music that would stop after a moment with the sound of a cow mooing. Seriously. At first I thought it was someone’s mobile. But it kept happening and several of us on the train looked at each other in disbelief. Maybe the Swiss just have an unexpected sense of humour.

Anyway caught a nice half-empty flight to Barcelona. Arrived at 9am.

Whole trip really smooth. Called the Hostal I had booked – caught a taxi there and then dumped my bags for 2 hours til my room was ready. A really cute place and people were nice too.

But sleep deprived and jetlagged my first stagger around Barcelona was odd. I ended up buying a bottle of water and Morcilla (blood sausage) roll and staggered into a Chinese/Spanish internet café. No-one spoke a work of English… the place was real divey and they were smoking. The computers were set to Chinese so I had little hope of pressing the right things when asked and on top of that Spanish keyboards have different placement of punctuation so the Facebook posts I put up were effected by these unexpected things.. The smoke got to me quite quickly – was glad I’d picked up a ventolin in Singapore (not that I’ve used it yet but…) – so I headed back out.

Wandered around and decided I’d like Barcelona cos the first person I ran into had this awesome gentle giant dog (these are the clues to a good place) and we (the man and I) made a very stilted attempts at communicating. Frankly I am still a little surprised – but happy I think! - by the lack of English spoken here (cab driver, shop assist, computer peops) people had told me otherwise before I left.

As I continued I found a supermerkado and head in deciding to refresh my VERY sketchy Spanish by finding stuff for dinner. I bought Anchovy stuffed olives, a tomato, endive, a lemon, smoked fish, almond milk, herbal teabags and chickpeas. Weird huh? Remember sleep deprived.

Anyway staggered back to hostal where I passed out in airconditioned comfort.

This is a view from my internal bedroom window and a pic of the hall area.
It had an amazing old-fashioned wrought-iron lift - I reckon lifts are gonna be a feature here as escalators were in SIngapore - to get upstairs and really quaint decor in hall area - room basic but had own bathroom and that was what I paid for.

Woke up and watched some SPanish spelling game show - yes really!. Made salad (everything but almond milk) by cutting up bits with pocket knife- handy already Lani and Jaz - pouring ingredients into a zip-lock bag shaking and eating with a spoon knicked from the plane. Ingenious! No kettle though so no tea... just drank almond milk from carton. hehehe

The day to day existence since then will be in next blog… if you can stand the wait – I’ve decided my blogs can lag too!