Going Home

I said goodbye to Tende at about 6.30am as he was going on a safari. My last meal in Dar es Salaam I felt had to be zege (chip omlette) so Elaine and I had that for lunch. I left Elaine outside the airport as only travelling people are allowed in the airport. The flight from Dar es Salaam to Doha, Qatar was very boring. Before taking off, I was delighted as I thought I had the 2 seats beside me free. Unfortunately a group of children came late. The eldest being about 15. The girl sitting beside me was probably around 8 and it was clearly their first time on a plane. The girl beside was the messiest thing I have ever witnessed on a plane, probably since it was my first time sitting next to a child. There were cheese and crackers everywhere (that was after she asked me what the cheese was for) Her little tub of milk for tea ended up all over herself and she wouldn't stop moving. I thought to myself were we all this annoying when we were that age!! I then thought I was probably worse.

The in flight entertainment was time slowing. First movie was "Mr Bean Goes on Holiday". Granted, it did have its moments and while watching the 2ND movie, I thought to myself, I wished they just replayed the Mr Bean film. The 2ND film was "Pirates of the Caribbean 3". What a terrible film. I remember laughing once at something Johnny Depp did but it was clearly too funny for me to remember now.

I arrived in Doha at 9pm and was greeted off the plane with a sticky, hot, 36 degree slap in the face. Just walking down the stairs to the bus was making me sweat. The airport was fine. My only complaint was when I was getting my bag checked because of my laptop. I was tired and he was making me take everything out of the bag. I took my laptop out of the case, he tried to open it from the back, I reached over to do it for him. He pulled it away and tried opening the screen without pressing the release button. I reached over again. He looked at me and said "I know how to do it, I've done it a million times. We are not jungle people out here." Thankfully my instincts were slow due to tiredness and I managed to think to myself, "say nothing !! They don't have the same lack of political correctness as Tanzanians do." So I just replied "It's expensive, I don't want it broken."

The 4 hours flew by since they had free wireless Internet. I sat on the floor as there were no seats near the only plug I could find. My ass was asleep by 1am.

Same situation as on the way from London to Doha, the Doha to London plane was great. I had my own TV screen which I could choose what I wanted to watch. I actually didn't watch a whole film through. I either got bored or fell asleep and when I finally got into Ocean's 12, we landed in London. As soon as I walked to the baggage claim belt, my bag was there. When I walked out of arrivals in Heathrow, I had the Beach Boys song "God Only Knows" in my head because of the closing scene in Love Actually.

I had 2 hours to kill in London before I could check it in again so I went upstairs to a pub and got an English breakfast for £8.80. The sausage was a let down but the bacon, mushroom and especially the scrambled egg more than made up for it. After checking in I queued for about 20 minutes at the "International Departures" section only to find out Irish departures were put with rest of UK departures. Grrr, I thought, going to Ireland is an international departure, which was quickly followed by the thought I don't care and if I heard another Irish person make the same complaint, I would think, "idiot!"

Flight from London to Dublin was only 50 minutes but seemed alot longer. I fell asleep for about 20 minutes but was feeling like I could sleep talk any minute. It had been a long time since I spoke to anyone and walking around the airports, I noticed myself talking to myself alot louder than usual and when I was half asleep on the plane, I thought I said something but when I looked around, nobody was looking.

FINALLY, I arrived in Dublin airport, but waited for ages for the plane to park as there was a traffic jam on a runway and spent ages waiting for my bag. When I got my bag, I walked out of the arrivals section of the airport, all eyes on me. From flying home alot from Linz last year, I know to turn right and that's generally where my Mam will be.

Traffic was terrible coming out of the airport but it didn't take too long to get home. Since I left, my bedroom has been completely re-done.
It no longer looks like the bedroom of a young teenager with Manchester United crests pasted all over the room, it's nice.

So that was my Africa trip and this is the end of my blog. If you read some/most/all of this, I thank you. I feel if I continued to write about my life after Tanzania it would be unoriginal, contain alot of private jokes and would interest no-one and I have no interest in writing it for myself. So, I'll quit while I'm ahead I guess.

Asante na tutaonana.