5 September 2009

After getting to bed after 11pm, and getting some sleep, I got up, showered, shaved, slapped my face and made it to Wellington Airport.

And so my holiday 2009 started....

Checked in - nice. Coffee with Moon (you may know him as Alex!!) and Aaron - nice. Mojo coffee is nice!

Then into the lounge - very civilised, very early and no 100mls Boss - please, there I was wanting to spend money and no go! It had to wait until Sydney.

Onto the plane - must admit, the bypassing the queue to get on the plane when I'm

half asleep and wondering what's up is kind've nice - nice!

And the flight was great. Sat next to Susu, a policy specialist from UNICEF who was in Wellington for a conference on child trafficing. What a stunning person - we spent a chunk of the 3 1/2 hours flight chatting (ok, about 2 1/2 hours of chatting is a chunk - but is it most of the time?). Anyway, what an interesting person. She's from Myanmar and has personally interviewed Ang Sang Sui Kyi. What was also interesting is that, from her perspective, it should be Myanmar and not Burma. As part of her doctoral thesis, she set out the name history of Myanmar - and basically when the British came in 1840 (something) they came up from the Indian Ocean and the first people they came across were the Burme (or however it's spelt). The Brits mispronounced it and called the country Burma - whereas it was Myanmar for centuries; basically there is no ethnic group of "Myanmars" so it's a name to cover all the groups who live in the country.

Bizarrely - the junta actually gave back the country it's historic name.

Anyway - after much food, much chatting, more food (and yes, champagne to start and feijoa smoothies throughout - I'm going to put on even more weight), into Sydney we arrived. Off the plane, through security, Boss 100mls acquired, into the lounge, a nice hot shower and I'm now sitting in the sun, watching planes land and drinking lots of water! Classic.

And yes, I did see 2 A380s - a Singapore Airlines one and an Emirites one. Big planes.

Onwards and upwards as they say!