It's been a long time coming...

and it's Wednesday already, but this is the first chance I've had to post something to let all my peeps out there know that I'm safely back in SA, a little frazzled at the edges due to Air Porra, but nonetheless glad to be home again. My trip started off on Saturday morning, the 25th March. I was at Joburg airport at 10h00, eager to get to see what Luxembourg was all about. Pick up some Euro's and check in at the counter, grab the new Bike SA magazine and head for the lounge and a good strong cup of coffee. Typical of airports, the check-in gate was supposed to be Number 6, but ended up being Number 30, right on the other side of departures. The flight to Lisboa was uneventful, except that just after check-in I find out we're going via Maputo (an hour east of Joburg) and we end up leaving there with a full load at just after 14h30. To put it in perspective, I could just about drive to Maputo from Joburg in the time it took us to get there, get the new passengers on board and for the cleaning staff to haul the trash out. I find I'm sitting next to a SA Porra called Franco who is on his way to Madeira to settle a land claim (sounds like SA, doesn't it?). Apparently he bought a piece of land a while back which was supposed to be 1500sqm larger than his title deed now shows it as. He's confident that it'll be sorted out this time though, as this is his third trip in this matter. The airline food, as usual, is crap but it's that or starve and we're arriving in Lisboa at 23h00 so there's not much chance of getting anything better at that time of night, as I find out later. I watch Zorro on the "big screen" and read some project documents, then catch about an hour's sleep. We arrived in Lisboa at a little after 22h00, I breeze through customs on my EU passport and my long wait begins. I have an 11hr stopover before the connecting flight to Luxembourg. After a half hour or so of TV which I don't understand, but can clearly see that it's The shopping Channel dubbed into Porra, I decide to strap my laptop and hand luggage to my suitcase, stretch out on the chairs and try and get some sleep. I manage about 2hrs until I snore myself awake, which in itself is unusual unless I'm sleeping on my back which I hadn't been (ever try and sleep on airport chairs...?) Anyway...I sit up and wander about the terminal until about 06h30 when I decide to go and check myself in. As I'd picked up my suitcase on the way into Lisboa, instead of going through the transit area, I had to go through normal departures. And guess what? The fuckin' place is packed... I eventually get checked in and end up back in the same terminal area that I'd just spent the last 10hrs in... I decide to grab a McDonalds breakfast and, if anyone knows SA McDonalds, you'll know it's shite, but Porra McDonalds is shiter than shite...believe me. We arrive in Luxembourg at around 16h00 after another Air Porra flight which AGAIN had a stopover, this time in Porto. I take a taxi to the hotel (for which the fare was 27 Euro's), the Meridien on the Place de la Gare (which, translated, basically means the hotel on the street in front of the train station). A reasonable room, but then I'm here on business and not pleasure so I can't really complain. The temperature is about 14degC, which isn't too bad and I decide to go for a walk. It's a nice enough little city, with some really nice architecture and buildings, as you'll see by the photos which I'll attach later when I can get some better upload speed. Only at around 10pm does the rest of the team arrive. They all drove in, one from Belgium and two from the Netherlands. I greet the two dutchmen in Afrikaans who are surprised to hear that they can actually understand what I said, and vice versa. We have a quick "getting to know you" drink and retire for the night, agenda set for the following morning. The project is basically a series of fact-finding interviews, followed by the drafting of a report detailing areas of concern in the recovery status of the bank. We have a gruelling schedule of three, hour and a half, sessions daily and believe me, by the time the end of the day comes, you're knackered. We finish off at about 19h00 after consolidating the findings each day. We decide to try a different meal each suppertime, seeing as there's four of us and four nights in town. The first night we have Italian (Frans's choice), the second seafood (Mark's), the third Indian (Nanette's) and I choose sushi as the last night's fare. Each of the meals had its own special tastes and overall the food was quite good. Mark and Frans decided to have "ink-vis paella" at the seafood night, and if anyone doesn't know what that is, it's a paella cooked in the ink from an octopus (apparently it's one of the most expensive ingredients in cooking). I had a taste once I'd finished my meal as the black paella didn't take my fancy. It actually tastes a little like Scottish black pudding, which surprised me, though I don't think I could have a full meal of it. Best of all was probably the Indian. There ws so much food on the table that, by the time we'd finished, it didn't look like we'd even started. And the naan bread that I had was the sive of a X-large pizza. The sushi was also good, though a little on the expensive side from what I'm used to here in SA. It was also Mark and Nanette's first time eating sushi and they were a little hesitant but they professed to enjoying it. I managed to get some nice photos of the city by night, with some of the buildings and bridges lit up in different colours. On Friday morning, I was due at the airport at 12h00 so Mark and I leave the office at just after 11h00, after saying our goodbyes. A nice bunch of people they were and I'm sure we'll work together again at some point. Needless to say, the flight home was not to be without its problems. The flight to Lisboa was an hour late in taking off and also returned via Porto. Another lengthy stopover there, where we were forced to get off the plane with all our hand luggage and come back 40mins later to the same plane, with additional passengers on board. I didn't mind it too much as it gave me some time to do some shopping and I brought back some Swarowski crystal earrings for Steph, who'd been home alone with the dogs for the past week. We get into Lisboa and I think there's just over two hours to departure to SA which will give me some more time in the duty-free. HA, FUCKIN' HA...I find out that the flight to SA has been CANCELLED!! Not even delayed, just cancelled. Standing in the queue with 50-odd (or is that "50, odd,") other passengers en route to Maputo and SA (yes, we're going back via fuckin' Maputo too) I find out through the hostess who's giving us hotel vouchers that the control tower staff is on strike and they're only pushing through 20 planes an hour instead of the usual 100. So we pile into a bus, get bussed to the Hotel Barcelona (why not the Hotel Lisboa, that's the capital, Barcelona's in Spain??) and checked in. As the kitchen is already closed, we have to walk around the block (about 300m) to the Hotel Zurich who were good enough to keep their kitchen open for us. The meal was so-so, typical of three star hotels, but at least it's a decent meal and not Porra McDonalds. I was tempted to go to the Pizza Hut right next to the Barcelona, but thought I'd rather save my Euro's (everything is multiplied by seven to get to the SA Rand equivalent). Back at the hotel, I grab a shower, but not until after I'd pulled on the SOS string hanging in the bath, wondering what it was for (we don't have such things in our hotels in SA). As I'd pulled it a number of times wondering when the light was coming on, thinking it was broken, the desk staff thought it must be really urgent, so they sent someone up to see if I was okay. Apologies in broken porra, and all was okay. I went for a shower and hit the sack, knackered. In the morning I had another shower and dressed in the same clothes I'd had on the day before. My suitcase, with toiletries bag, had been checked straight through to Joburg. Damn these airport regulations that say you can't take an aerosol deoderant with you in hand luggage. The flight to Joburg, instead of leaving at 11h45, flew off at 13h05 after yet another delay, this time caused by a flight to Luanda leaving late through the same gate we were leaving by. Damned if I wasn't sitting next to a Porra granny with a brat that moaned the entire way from Lisboa to Maputo. But I got my revenge...by the time we got somewhere over Africa the airconditioning in the plane wasn't working effectively and me, in my clothes of two days, started smelling somewhat putrid. In the end though, I couldn't handle the smell of myself so I went into the closet which doubles as a toilet on a plane and did the Superman-rip-your-shirt-open thing, washed under my arms and put on some of that pleasant coconut-smelling hand lotion to try and not be so odorous. It worked for a while but a couple of thousand kilometres later, and it was the same all over again. This time I thought "fuckit" and sat and stank the rest of the way. The hour and a half stopover in Maputo was, to say the least, unpleasant, as we had cleaning crew through the plane at midnight trying to vaccuum under our feet when all we wanted to do was get going again. Some of us really wanted to get home. We also had a hoarde of new passengers come aboard, who were all en route to Lisboa. Our plane was only stopping to refuel and then it was off again, which would make it an alomst non-stop flight of nearly 24hrs for the engines... Take my advice...stay away from Air Porra. As soon as we landed, literally as soon as the wheels hit the ground and we couldn't fall any further, I sms'd Steph to let her know we were in at last. By the time I got through customs and collected my luggage, which to my great surprise had actually arrived with me, she was waiting for me. At home, after saying hello to the dogs, Steph asked if I wanted a cup of tea. "Not me, thanks, I'm going to have a nice big 15yr single malt...I think I deserve it after what I've just been through", was my answer. After that, a good long scrub in the shower and off to bed where I eventually woke in the same position I'd fallen asleep in, 9hrs earlier. It's real good to be home...