On the road (yet) again

Yes I know I just wrote about that just a day or 2 ago but I feel this one is going to be one to document … Graz to Vienna by train, then short hop to Amsterdam. Long haul to Singapore then on to Sydney and then up to Cairns for the weekend to try get over the inevitable jetlag.

So i will be updating this as I go as a kind of timeline as much for me as for the three of you who look at this.

0901 leave hotel for station in taxi – I decided to pack neorealism breakfast to avoid one extra trip upstairs to fetch bags – as Christoph Sauser said it’s all about economy on a long trip like this.

0925 arrive 1 minute before train departs for Vienna – sign of things to come? Decided on 1st class on train as much because rest was full but also in the vain hope it sets a trend and I get an upgrade on one of the longer legs!

1214 arrive Vienna Sudbahnhof – next train is across station at 1219 but delayed by 4 mins so can make that easy enough to get to Vienna Mitte.

1225 arrive Vienna Mitte – short walk in midday sun to CAT terminal. Then board for Vienna airport.

1237 Depart for Vienna Airport. Much to the chagrin of those banging door as we roll out

1405 head to security and get bags scanned a couple of times cos of cameras and lenses. Still all done by 1418. Now just the standard 10 minute or so wait before boarding … Don’t know why this is but I you add up all the little waits here and there you soon find out just why it takes so long to get anywhere.

1434 looks like we got our first delay … Supposed to board at 1410 for 1500 departure – plane has just arrived and folks getting off or as the uhmuricans say deplaning. Btw have to mention an indispensable tool in this jet set lifestyle – other than iPhone of course – TripIt.com and associated app. Man that thing is handy – email your itenraries straight from airlines be it text, HTML or PDF and boom it creates a nice schedule for to have at hand on your phone, calendar or what have you. It stores the obvious ticket numbers, flight numbers, etc but it also has links to maps, weather and what the best seats are. Plus you can add all kinds of stuff to make it your one stop shop for references – hotels, trains, rental car whatever. It’s great when you just call up flight numbers, ticket numbers etc all on your phone in front of checkin to speed the process.

1440 crew just boarded … Should be a few minutes yet … But this is how it begins – couple of minutes here a short delay there and boom your carefully constructed itenerary falls to pieces. Still not the case yet as I have a couple of hours in Schipol to kill … Shopping anyone?

1449 Boarding. Will see what air ttraffic control say about delay and when they let us leave. Seat 5F – window near front just the way I like it. Well that’s not entirely true – anywhere in business class is where I like it

1509 Takeoff … Not too late sure we’ll catch up over Germany where the Autobahn limits extend vertically as well as horizontally.

1646 Arrive ahead of schedule despite late start. Nice. Quick jaunt through Schengen “border” then off to get some AAA batteries for the Bose headphones – don’t want those to die on 12 and a half hour flight! Quick to chat to Karen and Molly on Skype and then sort a few images out for folks.

1857 Been in the airport lounge for a bit – power, Internet, coffee, decent bogs and all that goes into making this weekly chore all that more bearable. Only couple of hours to go before boarding. Seat allocation doesn’t look so good though – am I jinxing myself again by hoping for an upgrade? Probably.

2036 Yep think I blew by typing my hope for upgrade stuck in 15c – hope I’m not stuck next to someone with a golfball size bladder. The next bit always amazes me – how people boarding a plane lose the ability to count! If the first seat is 1 the next is 2 etc it’s aviation for the masses not rocket science!

2135 Didnt want to jinx it so kept schtum when they told us flight was pretty empty and I had 3 seats to myself – almost better than upgrade. So on our way now – with about 12 hours in the air before getting to Singapore. Bummer about flying so often is when you fly often in the same month you se the same movies whenever you get on a plane. Over and out till half a day hence.

0650 in Amsterdam anyway – about 9-ish hours in. No idea of local time because I have no idea of where we are. KLM has just upgraded their in- flight entertainment interface but it’s a bit buggy and if you choose flight tracking you get the news. Oops. Slept for a good few hours. One thing though when you hear a fart through noise-cancelling headphones you know it’s a ripper. Sorry folks

0905 or more correctly 1505 Heading down Malaysian peninsula now to Singapore – 30 minutes or so to go now … Wasn’t too bad as 12 hour flights go. Watched a movie called The Great Buck Howard unfortunatley not as great as the title would suggest. John Malkovich held it together though in a strange sort of way – what would you expect from him!
Flight wise we are well ahead of schedule – while that might seem great it usually means that the gate will still be occupied and you sit in the plane for an extra half hour. Still I have 4 hours to kill before the next leg 7.5 hours to Sydney.

1822 got some work done in business class lounge just 40 minutes till boarding so gonna go see if I can find a book to read or something. Flying Qantas next so hopefully they have a different selection of movies. My dad told me years ago that Qantas means Quite A Nice Trip All Survived … The old ones are the best.

To be continued … here