Well after a long 2 weeks at home it seems like this season is never going to end – which financially makes sense – but time, family and rest wise is tough.
As usual travel was an adventure – left home with time to spare – I mean the airport is technically only 15 minutes away. But given the fact that the cape town city council has decided that every major artery to the city has to be worked on all together it gets tricky when you have a flight that requires you to drive in rush hour traffic to try make checkin. Usually I take the direct flight from Cape Town to Amsterdam but for some or other reason this was full and I had to fly via Jo’Burg … Not one of my favourite airports. Not that it’s a bad place like Heathrow it’s just that all the perks and priveleges earned as a frequent flyer seem to fall by the wayside there. Online check-in to get good seats, more baggage allowance, easy access to customs to declare cameras etc. You’d be surprised how much this all helps when you do it every couple of weeks.
Here’s an example of how quickly it can go wrong – try check-in for CPT-JHB – get stung for excess – within gold allowance in KLM but not SAA! Walk 10 mins to customs but now officer won’t declare my flashes and pocketwizards as they are now checked (as has been the case for 6 years of declaring goods) – so we will see how that affects me going back in to SA. SAA can’t check me all the way to Vienna or even Amsterdam or they would have to charge me excess! WTF they want to tale money for a KLM where I have allowance? I smell a rat and decide to just pick up bags in Jo’Burg and recheck myself for KLM flights. But now all the good frequent flyer seats are gone and I get middle seat in middle row. Awesome.
Still in Amsterdam you can sit in lounge get cleaned up, do internets and have a nice breakfast pre- next flights.
Get to Vienna and it’s like 30C and humid. Coming from winter in SA this was a bit of a shock to the system and dragging bags from city-airport train through construction site in Vienna to intercity was a bit of a chore. But it’s a nice place so what the hell.
Two and a half hour train trip later – it’s time for a taxi for last leg to Hotel in Graz. Total time from door to door 25 hours 31 mins. Not bad considering i’ve just crossed Africa and most of Europe.
It’s marathon world champs here in Graz this weekend then the next leg is gonna be tough on the body – Graz – Vienna – Amsterdam – Singapore – Sydney – Cairns … All from Monday to Wednesday non-stop. Nice, but I’m guessing that will help my frequent flyer status no end.
No camera tips this week folks … But you will be pleased to know that after a week of sunny, dry weather it is now pouring in Graz – so the UCI rain machine is here. Seems like every race this season its poured. I wonder is how much it’s going to cost to ship to Oz!
Doing this from my iPhone in some down time so no fancy pics and metadata – and it seems apt I use an iPhone pic. I wish more machines had a light like this.
