From 'Yesterday', Yesterday.

I’m writing this post from Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport, but at £9.99 minimum wi-fi charge, I certainly won’t be sending it from here! I’ve been to Heathrow before, but it’s only this time, as a transit passenger, that I’m appreciating how enormous it is. It’s a 10 minute bus ride from the landing runway to Terminal 5, and at no time during that journey did the three of us on the bus leave the airport, or in fact officially enter the UK. In transit, you are considered a risky specimen and must remain segregated until you have been scanned, controlled and possibly swabbed for biocontaminants and explosives.

Apart from size, the other salient point about Heathrow, Terminal 5, is that no-way-in-hell can I even think about doing any shopping here. I’ve been gazing in the windows of Prada, Gucci and Harrods, but the only price tag I saw said ON SALE £1100 - true, the dress was to-do-for, it was probably a serious bargain.  Looking as I do right now, I don’t really feel spunky enough anyway to go walking my $20 travel pants into a fine shop where the staff, the layout and even the floor tiles ooze daunting amounts of glamour. Even if merely window shopping, I’d prefer not to be looked upon as a piece of fluffy stuff that should be swept out the door ASAP. And I AM fluffy, because the (comfy and necessary) Air NZ blanket left wild pink fuzz all over my black clothes! And you know that the pink-fuzz covered couture look adds so much to that essence of well-traveled sophistication that I’m attempting to cultivate (giggling allowed).

I am not sure exactly what the NZD to Pound exchange rate is right now, but there is a fair chance that my lunch/dinner/snack (my body and brain have ceased to care which mealtime we are at) cost me upward of $30 in my home currency – ouch. At least I pulled together a healthyish option without having to think too hard. Salmon salad, an apple and an elderberry jelly from Pret a Manger. Of course I forgot that one way to pile on the pounds in England is to sit down (I’m talking about the fiscal ones, although I suppose it could also be true for the wobbly sort). Charging you extra to eat-in is something unheard of in NZ.  Maybe we just have a more favourable bum to chair ratio?

As you can see by my iPod, I have actually traveled backward in time and am currently in yesterday, which feels.. slightly jetlaggy. I should feel worse than I do because, apart from getting you to where you want to go, long-haul has little to recommend it. Perhaps the placebo juice helped after all, even though I only had enough for the first leg of the trip if I drank the recommended amount. My route so far has been Christchurch to Auckland (1 hour) then a three hour wait. Next flight Auckland to Hong Kong (about 10 hours), where we were anticipating 1.5 hours in the amazing airport while the plane refueled. However, the first 1 hour and 25 minutes involved getting ‘processed’ and relinquishing any liquids over 100ml. In the five minutes before getting back on the plane, I power sholpped an iPod armband with free training app. for an unknown amount of kiwi dollars (it was 300 Chinese dollars), and replenish my just-confiscated water for another unknown expense. The next flight was Hong Kong to London. I was seated next to a very pleasant teenage girl that spent the whole 12 hours sniffling, coughing and sneezing into tissues. I tried not to breathe. I spent a lot of time chatting with the stewardesses, one of whom admitted to me that she had never been game to fly from Europe to NZ as it was ‘the longest flight you could possibly do’. Indeed, and it’s not over yet!

There are now two hours before my last flight, which is to Zurich. This is a relatively short flight – about 2 hours and my mission is to stay awake. I’m also eyeing up the Chocolate Box shop just *over there* for a hopefully affordable present for the fam. I’d love to take some pics in here, but I got enough dirty looks just foodcamming my Pret a Manger, and would hate to attract the attention of security. I’m sure they are used to kiwi’s causing havoc, but I’d rather not get my mums camera confiscated at this early stage of things. Maybe I’ll risk it on the way home.