Monday 8 September 2008

I can survive Death Valley and France, but struggle to make it to Changi Airport




Having resorted flights so that i'd be back in Australia for the Glasshouse Mountains runs (after all Lufthansa had stuffed me about enough leaving LA, so i had no qualms stuffing them about if it cost me nothing).
So after Narbonne it was 4 days in Toulouse, a lovely city on the Garonne (same river as Bordeaux), full of ancient places as well as hosting "Festa Europa" that weekend. First thing i saw on arriving there was that the Stray Cats were playing there the Saturday night before i left, definitely a gig worth seeing. Only downside was actually locating the venue, "The Phare" appeared to be out in the middle of nowhere and only accessible by car or expensive Taxi. Ultimately i left the decision till the Saturday but with continous rain (and i still couldnt work out whether the venue was covered damned people at Virgin Megastore - selling the tickets - just couldn't make sense of my question) that morning and afternoon (after days of glorious 30 degree heat), decided i'd give it a miss (they are in Australia February/ March), and if the night cleared i'd go to the Festa Europa Grand Parade.
Great parade, devils with fire and fireworks wending their way through the streets of the Capitole to the river and more fireworks.
I'd been told to get to Blagnac Airport two hours early so unfortunately an early taxi pickup (caught it at 5). Not impressed when checkin didnt open till 6 as i could have saved money and caught the bus there !!!. 80 seat little Lufthansa jet plane to Frankfurt then 3 hours of waiting for the Singapore airlines flight to Singapore.
Really good trip to Singapore, watching 3 good movies: the latest "Indy Jones", a Tarintinoesque English movie "In Brugues" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780536/ ) set in a little Belgium Village and a very funny French (with subtitles) movie called "Welcome to The Sticks" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1064932/ ), all really good only disappointment being that the audio on demand channel had absolutely no Stones !!!.
All was good until 5AM Breakfast and obviously the noodles did not agree with me, spent the remaining 90 minutes not feeling well, and ultimately got some Aussies to find me the first aid area of the airport, as with a fever, diarrohea and feeling absolutely sh*t was going nowhere. Expensively (i'm assuming my travel insurance will cover it), i got the doctor to look at me, lot's of vomit and then a needle and antibiotics but seeing i was being charged S$45 per hour to stay in the bed at the clinic was out of there as soon as capable of wandering off.With a 14 hour wait for my next flight have pretty much spent the rest of the day lying pretty much anywhere, but now with only an hour to wait am standing in front of the "Hard Rock Cafe" finally feeling a bit better, certainly havent eaten and i think i'll be passing on the airline food and drink tonight. I'm sure i've looked a wreck, certainly parents with kids seem to have avoided passing me (always wondered whether someone would report me to security as must have looked drunk or stoned or something just as bad !!!).
Certainly leaves a questionmark over Glasshouse (i know have a course of antibiotics for the next week), but would like to think i'll be fine when i make it home.

1 comment:

Tesso said...

OMG Kel. Am I allowed to laugh ... its just that you make it sound so funny :)

Hopefully see you at GH.