Sunday, July 10, 2005

Howdy!
The lazy cow strikes again!... (aka Myself, with a capital 'S').

Not that I have anything eventful to write about, well, actually...

Remember that trip to Bishkek I was going on about in my previous post.
Well, what a trip.
Needless to say we had a brilliant time, with a somewhat fabulous crew, at least 3 of us were very active and did our thing, including sightseeing, shopping, eating and sunbathing (yes, I actually got a tan, well, kindof).
Then when it came to going back to London things got a bit more complicated.
Just when I was about to fall asleep in the most comfortable bed ever (I simply adore the Hyatt Regency in Bishkek)... I got a call from the fabulous Merce (a gorgeous espanish colleague of mine) telling me that our flight back has been cancelled and that we're leaving Bishkek 24hrs later. Nothing wrong with that, eh?

So, got my beautysleep, then arose early in the morning to wake Merce up, then she tells me we're not flying our own aircraft back... but that we'd be flying back as passengers (actually, it's called "positioning" in airhostessic) to London via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines.
Yeeha! I was actually excited to try a new airline, although I wouldn't have minded staying in Bishkek for a few more days (it did look like that was going to be the case), anyhow.
So we spent our extra day doing a bit more walking around Bishkek, sunbathing and then taking a trip up to the mountains (a 40mins drive from the city).
Had lunch/dinner there at an absolutely beautiful place, such a nice change from the greyness of the city, highly recommended, if ever in Bishkek!

Midnight came... drrrring: "Good evening sir, this is your wake-up call".

Yes, like us, Turkish Airlines has an ungodly depature time from Bishkek, something like 3:15 AM.
Flight was actually really nice. Sure the hosties are a bit surly to normal passengers, but then again, we weren't 'normal' passenger... somehow I think the silly outfits and namebadges displaying "British Airways / Pall / Cabin Crew" kindof make oneself stick out, no?
In fact they were ever so nice to us, bringing us loads of packets of delicious Hazelnuts, cherry juice, cake and even champagne (it happened to be one of my colleagues' birthday during the flight). So the 5hrs and 20mins passed away somewhat quickly, although not quickly enough.
Istanbul Airport (Atatürk International) is really nice, relatively new probably and quite good shopping, although for the local souvenir kinda stuff it ain't that good.
Then when we got back to London, we all felt like death (at least I did), having been travelling for over 12 hours...

as if that wasn't enough.
Yours truly then hopped over to the Icelandair desk at Terminal 2 and decided that same evening would be a good time to go over to Iceland on holiday!

Yes, I ain't kidding, I actually then went over to Merce and Konstaninos' house for a lovely lunch (how I managed to stay awake and reasonably alert is now looking back at it totally beyond me), then home for a shower, suitcase total repack and then off again to Heathrow.

By the time I got to Iceland I'd been awake for over 35hrs, and spent 14hours on an airplane (albeit, 3 of them) in the previsous 24 hours. Does that make at least some sense?

Now, a week later I'm still tired, but the kind of tiredness I'm experiencing is the kind you get when you sit around doing f&%k-all all day (by that I mean doing nothing at all).

So, that's it for now I think. Although I can think of a few things to say about this place (that's Iceland, the place I was born... an technically where I'm from), I'm not gonna.
Could moan about how ridiculously expensive things are (2.50 pounds for 20 bags of tea...), and about the silly shade of orange a lot of people out on the town are, but I simply can't be arsked.
Let them be I say, and their teabags too (Teabags and teabags).
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Iceland or Icelanders at all, it's just that I don't think I could ever live here for an extended period of time.

ladidah. and now, that's really it.