Ghetto Upgrade

Inspired by Rae over at Weather Vane, and the introduction of the term 'ghetto upgrade'.

Recently I had to take a trip to Israel, a business trip, but not in business class. The flight to Israel from Auckland went like this (all times are rounded to the nearest hour): 1 hour to drive to the airport to be there 3 hours in advance. 12 hours flight to China, 2 hours to change planes. 12 hours to Switzerland, 10 hours to play in the airport. 4 hours to Israel, 1 hour taxi ride. By the time we landed in China and they had come on the plane to check our temperatures (for Swine Flu), the time for me to get to my next flight had dwindles to around 40 minutes. In this 40 minutes I had to collect my luggage, pass through customs, check in, and find the next gate. Guess who's luggage was last out? Luckily I was assigned a lovely airport chap who zoomed me through most of the process.
It was the flight between China and Switzerland where I received the first of two ghetto upgrades (it was the similar route on the return leg). There is nothing so blissful as finding your seat and realise that you have no one sitting next to you. Nothing, that is, except for the shower you have time for when you get to Zürich. I was well rested and clean and set free to play in the most incredible airport I have ever seen. So incredible that I want to make it part of all of my overseas travel – even if I am only going to Australia.
Naturally I have loads of stories of how things didn't go exactly to plan, but I won't go into them … okay, maybe just a quick one.
On the first of my 12 hour flights back home, I had enough time to look around the airport and grab myself a coffee. I stopped, got the coffee, scavenged through my carry-on bag for enough coins to pay, grabbed a handful of sugar packets and walked all the way up to the nearest smoking lounge. Once there, I rolled my smoke, lit up and got all these sugar packets out of my pocket ready to add them. I take three heaped sugars in my coffee, and this amounts to six or seven of those tiny packets. Because I'm always so ashamed that I have to take so many sugars, I tend grab and pocket them rather quickly. That is the first danger, the grab and run. The second is not knowing what is written on the packets.
Bloody rubbish artificial sweetener.



Oh, and before I forget again, thanks to you all for following me, but sometimes I can't find your blog – Michelle, that was you too, I stumbled across yours – so if you have a blog and it's not there next to your name, please leave me a link so I can call in for a cuppa.