That all changed on the day that day that Nicole and I were due to leave. I worked so hard to get all my stuff finished up before that day, that I literally had nothing to do yesterday but wait for my flight to depart. I cannot tell you how long that seemed to take.
Our last day in South Africa for the year was spent dying my hair brown (I'd love to know what you all think of my new look!) and watching TV with Nicole. She was even inspired to cook a delicious beef stroganoff for us to help kill some time.
Eventually, it was finally time for us to head off to the airport. Check in was surprisingly quick and painless, and we were three hours early, so we went and had a bite to eat with my dad before heading to the departure lounge.
Nicole's boyfriend, John, was supposed to meet us, but hadn't arrived and his phone was off. She was quite disappointed that she wouldn't be able to say goodbye to him, but he gallantly strode in at the last minute, right before we headed to the departure lounge, like the hero of a romantic movie, to kiss her goodbye.
Although we were finally a step closer, time still seemed to crawl. We stood in two incredibly long queues just to get into the departure lounge. We then queued to board. Our plane then queued to take off, meaning that we left OR Thambo late.
The flight was 10 hours long to France, which felt even longer due to the fact that neither of us slept at all. We did have an incredible movie-marathon and LOTS of food to keep us distracted (seriously, Air France goes all out: Champagne as an apéritif, wine with dinner, Magnum ice creams as midnight snacks, pastries for breakfast... Who said airline food can't be delicious?)
On the flight, besides growing increasingly exhausted despite being unable to sleep, Nicole literally blew up into a little water balloon. You could literally watch her hands puff up with water retention. The poor thing eventually had to take her shoes off because they began constricting her blood flow and she was getting pins and needles.
She was actually in pain when we FINALLY landed and she needed to put them back on. What's more, she had to stand around in her constricting boots while we tried to find the gate for our connecting flight on the large digital displays like stock brokers at Wall Street.
We also had to walk unbelievably far to get to out next plane, even taking a train between gates! And then, Nicole set off the metal detector, so not only did they frisk her quite thoroughly, but they made her remove her shoes, and the poor thing had to endure the pain of putting them back on again for a second time. She was quite unimpressed by the time we were queueing to board our connecting flight.
We were seated at the very back of the plane. Really, there were no seats behind us. The advantage of this, though, is that we were the first to be given coffee and croissants. I really love Air France. We hadn't even entered their country yet, but we had already had champagne (the legit stuff) and croissants.
Upon finally landing in London, our plane had to wait to be assigned a parking bay. We then had to queue again to get through customs. Then we had to drag our heavy bags through the airport and onto the tube, which we rode for an hour before arriving at our station.
We then had to queue again for a lift to take us up 15 flights of stairs (no, we weren't carrying our bags up, even if they were only 1/4 full) and drag our luggage through the rainy streets to the hotel only to find that we were five hours too early to check in!
So we left our luggage at the hotel luggage desk, and took to the streets of London for a bit of window shopping. Everything is so damn expensive here, though. Nicole accidentally ordered us frappacchinos instead of lattes, which not only set us back R50 each but also made us even colder than the wet 5 degree weather had.
She offered to pay for her mistake, but we discovered that her debit card doesn't work here. She is able to draw money from the ATM but can't pay for things with her card at till points. My cheque card works fine, so we will try her card again in France to see if it's just a UK thing.
Eventually, Nicole's feet just couldn't take anymore punishment, so we bought some sandwiches at Tesco for lunch and headed to the Contiki Basement to wait out the last two hours of our pre check in time. Besides being warm and dry, it also offers free wifi so I have been able to get in touch with loved ones and upload some of the photographs I have taken so far.
Nicole has beed dozing on the couches here while I have been typing this up. It will be great to finally see a bed, though, so I can take a nap as well. We have been awake for WAY too long (over 30 hours now) and we have a super early morning tomorrow.
Really can't wait for morning. We'll be heading back to Paris! It's time to put this super long day to bed. Literally.
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