After nine months of travelling the world the time had finally come for us to return home. During our time we had visited nine different countries, not only experiencing new customs and cultures but also enjoying the hospitality of a great many friends and family along the way.
At the end of 2010, Mark's father, John had contacted us and urged us to try and use up his British Airways airmiles that he had acquired during years of international travel. They were apparently due to expire at the end of the year, and as he had recently retired and was busy refurbishing his new home on the south coast of England he couldn't find the time to use them. You don't need to offer 250,000 airmiles twice to a couple of backpackers, so we quickly set about following his instructions. A few days later we had booked two tickets to fly home First Class, successfully using up all but 20,000 of his airmiles. Unbeknown to us, during this time John had telephoned BA to complain about losing his airmile fortune and had been told that they would be extended for another three years with any purchase ... he promptly used a few hundred airmiles booking a flight from London to Manchester, thereby extending the life of his stash. But then we called to tell him our great news. Oops.
The First Class experience was incredible. As our flight was due to take off at 10pm, we were invited to a five-course dinner in the Executive Lounge prior to takeoff. This was to allow us to sleep during the night flight, and the endless supply of champagne at dinner certainly made sleeping easier too!
On board, we were treated like royalty. Meg had her 'bed made' and had a great night's sleep, while Mark enjoyed reading a newspaper with real 'football' and also set about getting as many First Class freebies as possible. Needless to say, one of us didn't exactly behave like royalty!
Breakfast was served before we landed and was again a different experience to any other flight we'd taken. Table-cloths, silver cutlery, china crockery and even HP sauce!
From Heathrow we headed to our new lodgings in picturesque Stow-on-the-Wold. And we were delighted to see it rain non-stop for our first three days back in England. But unlike any rain we'd experienced over the last nine months, it drizzled. Nowhere does drizzle like home!
A few days later we headed down to visit Mark's father and deliver a bottle of champagne (as well as a set of British Airways First Class pyjamas) to say thanks for such a great end to our travels. We hope he'll learn to forgive us one day.
Mark, do I envy u or not? Amazing to see you guys have had a nice time .. wondering who is the one who dint behave like royalty .. hmmm, I think it could be Mark :P hehe !!
ReplyDeleteIt was great to drink the champagne, sat in front of the log fire in my BA first class pyjamas, reading your blog. Thank you.
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