July 6 2010 – July 8 2010

Cape Town to London

I write this sitting on the bed in Kew Bridge Travelodge and feel much better than I did yesterday. As you might have gathered I arrived safely and have settled into both work and the hotel. What can I say about the trip? I know, it was fucking terrible. Firstly if you decide to fly to London from Cape Town avoid the direct SAA flight. It is a really old Airbus A340-200 yes that is the 200. I thought they only flew those domestically but apparently not. The seats were awful and old and there was those drop down screens so you had to watch the movie that they were showing and couldn’t pick what you wanted. They showed one movie the whole trip. ‘Date Night’ thanks for asking. Ah it was ok.

Second reason the flight was terrible was I had a rather large woman next to me whose skin spilled over to my seat over the arm rest. Only saving grace was that I had an aisle seat so I could go to the loo when I didn’t feel like being squashed.

So I arrived in London at 6h12 on Wednesday morning after not sleeping well. A colleague of mine met me at Heathrow and we made our way to the office. I had a shower there and then spent the day looking and feeling like a zombie.

The Travelodge only lets you check in at 15h00 so I left the office at 15h00 and made my way to Chiswick high road to take the 237 bus to Kew or I thought I was going to Kew. I got on the right bus but on the wrong side of the road so ended up going the wrong way. Luckily I realised that it was the wrong way early on so got off cross the road and got on another 237 bus and found my hotel.

The Travelodge isn’t too bad although basically a room with a bed and an old TV. At least it is only for two weeks.

Thursday 8 July

Pretty uneventful day actually, just got up went and fetched some breakfast from a little bakery and went to the office. Then walked home after work and decided to go to a shopping mall. Wow! What an amazing mall, every designer brand you can think of as well as a few shops that cater to someone with my budget and my Rands. Must of looked weird in my Bafana Bafana shirt and mouth open in amazement at the huge shops. Ended up eating McDonalds of all things in the park in Sheppard’s Bush and taking my trusty 237 bus back to the hotel.