Arrival and Kitten-Sitting in Liverpool
My plane from Abu Dhabi to London took off an hour late, which was an issue since after arrival in London I was meant to be heading to Liverpool with Rachel & Jeremy to kitten-sit for the weekend. It looked like it could be a bit tight if the plane landed an hour late to get to Euston for the train to Liverpool, assuming the plane could get a gate as soon as it landed and it didn't take any longer than an hour to get through formalities (which is what I had been told to expect). This was Heathrow we were talking about, the busiest airport in the world and it was possible we could be waiting for a while. In any event Jeremy was going to wait for me at the airport, and Rachel would go to Euston and meet us there. In any event, we just had to wait to see what happened when my plane got there and it wasn't like I could do much about it for the 8 hour plane ride. Which was a pretty good flight in all, this time it was an Emirates plane while the other one had been a Virgin Australia one - the service was different but not any better or worse, although the entertainment system on the Emirates A340-600 wasn't as good as the Virgin Australia 777-300's - not in terms of content but how it worked. Anyway it sufficed for the journey, and from the map screens about 5 and a half hours into the flight I realised we would land about 2 hours early.
Which we did - we landed at 6pm, after flying down the Thames estuary. Out the window I could see lights of Britain, and in the distance over a big black space I could see more lights - it looked like distant coastline, and from the map on the screen it could only be the coast of France. We touched down, taxied straight to a gate (though that took a bit of time - the airport is huge) and as soon I was able I headed off the plane to the formalities quickly as possible, making contact with Jeremy to let him know what was happening. I managed to get through immigration, get my bag and go through customs fairly smartly and was out in the concourse at 6.30pm or thereabouts where Jeremy was waiting. It was literally a matter of "Hi! ok lets go" and before I knew it, we were on a Tube train heading towards Euston. It didn't go straight there - we had to change tube lines at Kings Cross St Pancras to get to Euston. We duly arrived at Euston about 8pm, with a full hour before the Liverpool train left. We met up with Rachel and then proceeded to the First Class lounge where we could eat and drink for free before the train left - as it hadn't been much more to get First Class tickets on the train over the normal tickets. The train ride was a smooth 2.5hr ride on a Pendolino tilt train, rushing through the English countryside at a cool 200km/h and yes I did have my GPS speedo on my phone going. Being First Class also meant we got free food and drink on the train, including a few beers.
We were met at the station by Sally, who took us back to Uncle Wayne's house where we got to catch up with him and Sally plus the cat and kitten we were looking after while they went to Edinburgh to watch the All Blacks play Scotland on Saturday night. Uncle Wayne asked when I arrived into the country - I replied 6pm. After a few more questions he established I'd pretty much rolled straight off the plane and come straight to Liverpool, to which he burst out laughing! Wayne and Sally headed off pretty early the next day to Edinburgh and left us to look after the cat and kittens. There were 3 cats - the mother cat Trinity, the last of its litter Merlin (the rest having been sold off) and another new, older kitten Nessa. About lunchtime, after making sure the cats were all fed and watered we wandered off towards central Liverpool since it wasn't far away.
London
So far, so good - I've gotten over the greyness and no longer think London's that daunting. Still getting used to some things - such as the red and orange combination light that flashes at traffic lights just before it turns green (almost like an "On your marks, get set type thing); everyone walks on the right, despite signs in the tube saying "keep left"; and it gets fully dark by about 4.30pm each day and apparently that's going to get worse yet. Still a lot of things to get done and a long way to go before I'm settled in here...