The flight to Germany
On Sunday 27th of September I set off for my very first true international journey. I may have been to New Zealand a few times though that is merely across the ditch (the Tasman) with a flight time of about four hours.
The flight time to get across the Australian continent alone was probably longer than the time it takes to fly to New Zealand. Not least to mention that they speak English in New Zealand and the people (along with their towns and cities) are more or less the same as in Australia. I was reminded of the sheer size of Australia from this very experience. It was probably about half the distance to Bangkok.
Due to strong winds in Sydney, the plane arrived very late in Bangkok. Bangkok was an extremely busy airport and we were forced to get off the plane to pass through security, only to get on the same plane again. I don’t mind getting off the plane, though passing through security multiple times is really a pain.
The next leg of the flight was through the night and it truly had the sense of being motionless. Though I think this was the case for the entire flight anyway as I was in a centre isle seat with no view out the window. I did get some sleep but not a great amount. The seat was really uncomfortable for my legs as well. Though I did have reasonable rest. On the whole it felt like a long wait while going nowhere.
London Heathrow was a massive airport and it was really unfortunate to be stuck there for half the day without even time th other o travel into London. Though other than the pounds and slightly different accent, it didn’t feel too different from Australia.
Finally I arrived in Munich, Germany later that afternoon. It didn’t feel like I had travelled that far and going through border control was such a non-event, compared with Australia. My instinct was to speak English, though I was reminded of the fact I was in a foreign country when an airport staffer responded to my ‘thanks’ with ‘bitte’.
I had a bit of a wait for my friend Daniel to arrive. Though when he greeted me in English it once again felt less like I was in a foreign land. My only concern was that he was driving on the wrong side of the road! Sarcasm aside, it took some getting use to with sitting in the passenger seat on the right hand side of the car. It may have been fatigue and the effects of such a long journey, though the country side didn’t seem out of the ordinary at the time, despite being quite different from Australia and very beautiful. Though I was glad to finally be in Germany.