The Voyage Home

My journey home from Sydney back to the freezing cold UK was very eventful. After checking out of the relative luxury of the Menzies Hotel, we checked Hannah in to the oddly titled Y Hotel (or Sydney YWCA, as it turned out to be). We then got on a train and headed to the airport.

After killing time waiting for check in for my flight to open, we finally made it to the checkin desk, to discover that the flight was overbooked and the airline were looking for volunteers to move to the next flight. I was more than happy to volunteer, given that I had been trying for the past week to get onto the next day's flight in order to spend an extra day in Sydney with Hannah. Even better, the airline put us up in a nice hotel, gave me S$500 in compensation (that's 500 Singapore dollars) and also gave me a US$200 (that's 200 US dollars) voucher for the inflight duty free shop. It's very nice to be given compensation in order to accept something that you've been asking for all week.

While we waited to find out if I would definitely be getting the next day's flight, we went for dinner at the airport's Wagama restaurant. This proved to be a bizarre experience, as we managed to witness a fight break out between one of the chefs and one of the waiters. This ended when the waiter stormed off, leaving the only other waiter to try to clear up all of the mess. The end of our meal was even more surreal as five or six coppers descended on the place, trying to find out what had happened.

After we finished our meal, we went back to the Singapore Airlines desk and were told that I would indeed be on the next day's flight. Result. The airline put us up in the Mercure hotel near the airport. Sadly, it wasn't nearly as posh as the Menzies but it was a bit nicer than the YWCA. The airline paid for our dinner, too, which was very nice.

The next day, I said goodbye to Hannah and got on the plane. The journey home wasn't particularly exciting, involving lots of trying to sleep in the plane, waiting around for hours in Singapore airport and then finally arriving in Heathrow in the early hours of Sunday morning, jetlagged and very cold.

So is it nice to be home? Well, it's quite good and all but I miss Hannah. And my feet nearly froze off walking home from the National Express coach station.