Journey from London to Egypt.....

London is big.

The tangle of tube lines is even bigger.

I left plenty of time to get the train from where I kissed goodbye to my friends. Murphys Law: - I was rushing up the escalator and asking every person I passed was I in the correct terminal. (Heathrow is big as well). Unfortunately no-one knew which terminal EgyptAir flew from, so I ran around rucksack on my back, panicing, wondering if my costly travel insurance covered missing flights.

Of course once I set down in the airport I ran to the Burger King and stuffed my eager face with big burgers, floppy chips and tonnes of tomato sauce - as I had been doing for the previous 2 months in Dublin - swallowed down with copious amounts of beers - (Sure I wouldn't be seeing either foodstuffs for months and months and months)- twas all to be bananas from now on. Maybe if I was feeling risqué I'd try the local delicacies: rice, felafel and lemonade.

Eventually I found myself peering over towel-headed Arabs (my knowledge of the Muslim culture quite basic at that time) at the check-in area to find Andrea - my fellow blonde Caucasian female traveller. She had cut all her blonde hair off and had it neatly tied up in a ponytail - a sign of greasiness to come. She wore the clean flashy combats, which each of the 3 of us had purchased in ex-army stores (different colours), sparkling new boots and the almighty fleece. We hugged and nervously turned towards the desk and presented our tickets and full brimming rucksacks to the exotic hostess.

The plane was huge. Hollywood's films and books depict Ireland as a quaint backward place. It is true we do not have the though-traffic to necessitate large aircrafts and anyway we are only a stones throw away from that pulsing polluted tangled hub of London from where we can go anywhere in the world.

Now I fancied myself as having travelled quite a bit, all over Europe and America. But this plane was huge. There were Televisions on the bottom and on the front so we could see a captains-eye view of the runway and then the land below when we were safely airborne - an expense which is not necessary in my view but which entertained us immensely. Our fellow Arab passengers took it quite coolly and did not respond to our ohs and ahs awe-struckm from this modern technology!