Up up and away

12/12/10   Sunday, 23.00 tee shirt weather.

The adventure begins.

Flying ETIHAD.  God, it sounds like a stadium! We set off, hearts a pounding, through customs easy, board the plane easy, find our seats easy and not one tantrum. My we’re doing well we’re just like grownups finding our way around, nobody telling us what why or how to do things. I’m beginning to think we can do this.

The seats were comfortable, not roomy but ok. Mind you I don’t think anything can be comfortable for 14 hours! In flight service was great, in about eight languages (if you needed it) but mostly Arabic and English. Food and drink was plentiful, inflight movies, music, games and a myriad of other choices helped pass the time. The Devil Wears Prada, The Grapes of Wrath and A Good Year (I think it was called that) with Russell Crowe, along with a smattering of electronic card games, classical music and checking to see where we were and the occasional snooze saw me through the first leg of the journey. The flight was mostly smooth with the occasional seat belt warning and bumpy ride for a few minutes as we hit a turbulent patch, no drama.

 We reached Abu Dhabi at 6.30, to what looked like foggy skies but turned out to be ‘haze’ or more likely smog. The airport is modern, spotless and HUGE. I kid you not! I reckon we must have walked a couple of kilometres to one end of the building, overlooking flight lounges on the floor below and passing about 8 travelators on the way, glad to be stretching our legs. Down an escalator and halfway back on that level, to our flight lounge to wait for our flight to Heathrow, London, our legs were well and truly stretched! The wait here was only about 1 ½ hours but we were probably both over it by then and just wanted to be in London.  The flight to London was a bit harder to endure; we’d already played with all the gadgets, checked out the airways magazine, the safety card and even the duty free booklet. Hell, we’d even been up and down to the toilets a couple of times. The flight crew were amazing, very thoughtful and friendly. The plane was not full and the steward offered Michael two seats, in the centre and one row down just so we could both stretch out a little. That was a bonus that made the flight a bit more bearable. It was broad daylight by this time but the shades were all drawn at the windows, I guess the light was too harsh. I’d already closed mine as the sun was reflecting off the wing into my face. I actually slept a little more on this leg. The sun was shining brightly as we flew over what I think was either Belgium or France and reached the sea for the channel crossing, we hit cloud and when we descended below the clouds the grey English countryside lay below, I reckon I felt the temperature drop even though I was still comfy in short sleeves. We landed and drove around the tarmac for about 10 minutes while the pilot looked for somewhere to park, someone, it seemed had pinched our parking spot!!!!

Comparatively speaking Heathrow is a dump, crowded, dirty looking and messy the grey weather didn’t add anything to the scene either. The only positive was that we didn’t have to walk quite so far although it was still quite a hike then a long, long queue to get through Border Control. We just walked straight through customs, we didn’t have anything to declare so went through the nothing to declare gate, where a very cute dog sniffed everyone as they went by, and out the door.

Here started our first ‘heart in the mouth’’ episode. We were both tired, not sure what to do or where to go. We decided to find an information desk, ha! Should’ve been easy, it wasn’t. We set off both talking at once, we were side by side, Michael said just find someone in a fluorescent jacket and ask them. I’d spotted the train station sign and said lets head towards that, we need to find out how to get to Oxford by bus, they should be able to tell us where the bus station is. I got to a desk with a woman and not just a self -serve unit, turned to say something to Michael and he was gone, (bloody kids!!!!) I got the info I needed and walked back to where I’d last seen Michael and stood there looking around, panic rising, tired and starting to get a bit anxious when he turned up. “Where did you go?” he asked accusingly. I pointed back to the rail station and said I had gone to get directions and he had been right beside me where did he go? “I looked around and you’d gone, I walked down towards the station and couldn’t see you so came back here and went out the front door to see if you’d gone out there!!”  All’s well that ends well, we caught the free train one stop got off and found our way to the coach station where we were able to get a coach to Oxford that left in about 30 minutes and Michael only had to pay half price because he is over 60, bonus!!!

 It was cold outside and I was glad of my coat. The thing I noticed from the coach was the trees, all naked and skeletal, beautiful but a little eerie, a bit further on there were some tall conifers, the only trees that had any coverage and they looked a little uncomfortable to be clad when all their kin were so beautifully bare! We drank in the sights as we headed towards the university town, the buildings were so different from home, but it wasn’t until we hit the outskirts of Oxford that we really felt a historical difference and that hit with a jolt. By the time we got off at the terminal we were cold, tired and hungry and it was getting dark fast. (It was about 4.15pm) We put our beanies on to ward off the cold and tried to figure out how to get to our digs at St Stephen’s House in Marston Street.  A hot cuppa and a pastie later, we were still cold and it was dark, we were too tired to pursue bus roots and probably not thinking terribly well so opted for the smart choice of a taxi. Turned out to be a good choice, we were dropped at the door within 10 minutes and retraced some of the steps our coach had taken but who knew? Getting in to the building you use an entry code which we had, followed the emailed directions to the table where we found an envelope with our name on it, that held our room key and directions to our room. Ah, home at last and what a home. I took lots of photos of this glorious room with its adjoining kitchenette it took us some time to find the light switch in here. After trying every switch we could find including the power points (there’s plenty of those) I finally thought of looking up, was it in the Falkland Islands where the lights sometimes were operated by a cord hanging from the ceiling? Well our kitchen light here is ‘string’ operated! We found the ensuite while searching for the kitchen light, bonus, for some reason I had thought we had to share one of the bathrooms we’d passed in the hall, but then our room is called The Bishop’s room, so it stands to reason that it should have a few more comforts than the norm. We gazed out the leadlight windows at the dark silhouettes of some very old buildings. We’d already eaten, when we got off the coach and although it felt like about 10pm, it was in fact only just on 6pm much too early to go to bed, Michael proposed a little foray into the local shopping strip at the end of the street,  we rugged up and set off.

Cowley Road runs past the end of our street and all the way into the city centre, we headed in the opposite direction and found lots of different ethnic eateries, a pub or two, a Tesco grocery store, where we bought a few bits and pieces and a dodgy looking internet café which I decided to try as I wanted to assure the family that we had arrived safely,  seeing as how I couldn’t get a connection on my notebook this seemed the only way. It was run by a family of Arabic background, very nice people, who seemed a tad surprised I thought, to see us wanting to use the internet. I bought an hour for a pound and proceeded to the back of the tiny shop crowded with goods of every description,  down a steep staircase (“Watch your step lady!”) to a basement with a bank of 5 or 6 computers and a group of young Arabic speaking men. Hmm, my imagination started working overtime! I eventually got onto my email, once I’d worked out that the @ key was swapped with the “ key, I was able to email home. Back to our digs with some delicious Middle Eastern cakes and some Yorkshire tea bags to make supper and hit the sack. It was only about 8.30 or 9pm but we both were too tired to last any longer.