Sydeny - Singapore - 16 - 18 Mar, 2007
Leaving Australia proved to be a little bit trickier than it should have been. I had a funny feeling deep down in my boots that it would be. You see, I'd changed my Star Alliance (round the world) ticket so I could stay another couple of months in Oz. For reasons I won't go into for fear of raising my blood pressure and developing a nervous tick, to do this I had to ring up some United Airlines call centre in...I don't know...Ohio? The guy at the end of the phone had a very weak-thumbed grasp on what I wanted and it took a long time to walk/talk him through the changes to my Sydney - Singapore flight and subsequent changes to my Bangkok - Hong Kong and Beijing - London flight dates. I received an email confirmation of the changes from one Brad Marshall (Dipl. in Feckwittery), and that was all. As I said, I suspected some trouble, and I got it.
At check in I was told there was no record of me on the Singapore Airlines flight to Singapore. What they had got a record of was that all my subsequent flights after arriving in Australia had been cancelled from the system. Grrreat. I showed them my email from Brad Marshall, but funnily enough it didn't seem to hold water, in fact I'd say it was terrifically porous.
I think more to get me out of the check-in staff's hair, I was sent to the bowels of Sydney Airport to some ticketing office. It wasn't clear to me quite why, but I had little option. My flight was leaving in an hour and a half and I had not even a day left on my visa.
After another half an hour of explaining again (to two different folk) I managed to get hold of someone who seemed to understand my predicament and whether they unravelled Brad Marshall's Gordian knot or simply re-issued my tickets for the ongoing legs out of pity, I don't know, but I made the plane.
Singapore Airlines - fab airline indeed. Watched three films back-to-back including The History Boys based on the play by Alan Bennett. Strange that I was flying at 35,000ft somewhere over Australia or Indonesia and watching a film by the odd, tweedy, bespectacled, bookish fellow I would see buying ready meals in Camden Marks & Sparks a few months ago.
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