Travel Monologue, the Third

Got up at 7am, washed dressed packed, did the auto checkout, skipped breakfast and headed for the 8am presentation. Boss called and told me the Sydney trip is postponed, you can sneak back out of the luggage Shaz. I was expecting that, they've been brewing trouble down under for a few days.

Lunch was going to be swordfish steak but the fella in front of me took the last one. I couldn't wait for them to bring another tray, "time is monkey!" I cried and sidled up to the beef stroganoff, like a crab approaching a bottom shaped rock. 5.15pm, taxi to Paddington, Heathrow express to err, Heathrow. The self check-in machine rejected me so grinningly I jumped the apparently static Fast Bag Drop queue and got checked in without queueing at all, arrived at the gate with 3 minutes 22 seconds to spare - good job I brought a book.

I must have been the last to check-in, I got a middle seat in the last row, there was only one thing on my mind now, chilled red wine and lots of it, go on call me a philistine I've earned it.

I had a strange dream a few days ago about the landing in Oslo, the plane veered off to the left and then spun violently right, I woke up. It's kind of been festering in the back of my mind but it's ok now, nothing like that happened. They have parquet floors, beats the jelly beans out of that fake marble in most airports. Nice airport, I was impressed the cash machine let me input the amount in euros and showed what the equivalent Kroner would be. I didn't expect it to actually give me euros, so I went around again and took the Kroner equivalent out. Then it dawned on me, if the machine gives euros then it must be ok to... oh buggering bollocks!

It's 4 degrees outside, the captain said it might snow but it didn't. By the time I'd refunded one hour to the Greenwich Mean Timekeeper and slipped the cabbie 640 kroner it was 11.15pm. The Hotel restaurant was shut, the receptionist pointed me to the little shop in the foyer, there was some kind of odd Nordic look in his eye and I suspected it wasn't pride. I was right, dinner was a triangle-pack ham salad sarnie and a bag of crisps, "bon apetite" I said to myself sitting on my bed in the shoebox they laughingly call a hotel room. I put the tv on and found one of those Clint Eastwood and the Orang-u-tan movies, perfect, something I haven't seen since I was a kid. Regression therapy, bring it on! Just as I'd accepted the fact that they were showing such a crappy old film on Norwiegan tv, firmly sand-blasting the novelty off my first trip to Oslo, The Caption came up. Apparently, this is pay per view!! ehh? I suppose they must get a lot of tourists from Lapland, the Moose Family Gundersson perhaps.

Side note to Clint: why? why? for the love of Elvis, why? (did anyone see that wierd documentary last night about the medium who claims Elvis is doing karaoke through him? Bloody idiot.)

Well, the epic round the world voyage turned into a jaunt round 'yerp. I'll get to Sydney later but my friends from blighty won't be there, that's a shame. I'd better find the address I'm supposed to go to in the morning and get some sleep, I hope it's not far I'm a bit low on Kroner('s?).

JJ