The road to Spain

Thursday May 30 - afternoon in Frankfurt.

Since leaving home about 9am Monday: Flew to Auckland and then on to Singapore, arriving 9pm local time Monday night. NZ time by then was 1am Tuesday, so it’d been a long spell awake. Stored my suitcase at the airport

Abandoned plans to negotiate the train system and got a taxi to the Galaxy Pods in Mosque St, Chinatown.

It wasn’t a good intro to pod life. Pod S23 was on the second tier, had the door in the end and the door was broken. When I climbed in I had to shunt all my stuff further in, in order to shut the door, then climb over it. When I tried to close the door, the top hinge came unstuck, so I couldn’t shut it properly.

Woke in the night needing a pee. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get out without waking the whole place, so sacrificed my empty drink bottle, a process I repeated twice in the night.

Inevitably I was wide awake by soon after 5am. Eventually got up and had a shower, taking care not to leave that tempting yellow drink lying about. Had breakfast and set out aimlessly walking soon after 7am.

The heat came down like a warm wet blanket. Wandered down to Marina Bay, up the river and round about. Got a two-day rail pass and did some exploring. It was said to be about 32-35 degrees all day.

Like most underground rail systems, there are many exits at any given station. Inevitably, I’d come up to ground level and wander about, then not be able to find the way back in.

Like the man from Ironbark, I loitered here, I loitered there, till I was fit to drop. I just couldn’t get my internal navigation system going.

When I finally made it back to Mosque St, I’d done 25,000 steps – about 20km – good training. My sole purchase was a pair of undies (I had only the pair I started out from Nelson with – the rest were in my suitcase at the airport).  It was lovely to have a shower and, dressed in clean undies, sit outside the Galaxy Pods bar (in the shade) and feel the warm air without sweating too much. I should have explored the food options, but just ordered a pizza from the bar, drank one beer more than I needed and crawled off for an early night.

They’d given me a new pod – side entry and on the bottom tier. It was much more user friendly.

Wednesday - still woke up early, but managed to stay in bed until after 6am. I didn’t want to spend another day wandering about lost (although I had Google maps, I didn’t want to use too much data. Besides, my old phone goes flat quickly and I’d left my little mobile charger in my suitcase), so I just mooched around in the pod, where I had the ability to charge my phone and access to wifi and could read in comfort.

At 11am I wandered down the street to the exotic spa which was offering a 90-minute massage and foot therapy for $58.

Turned out I could get straight in. The therapist was very shy, didn’t have any English and didn’t look very strong (wrong).

First I was left alone to put on the supplied undies – much like a shower cap with holes for your legs. I was covered completely in towels, with a couple of warm bean bags on my lower back and legs.

At first it was all pressure, just pushing down and softening up. Then the real massage started. It wasn’t gentle or relaxing, but I’m sure it broke down some knotted muscles.

Next a shower and then a therapeutic soak of the feet in warm water and I was out on the street.

I didn’t do too much. Just wandered about, alternating with train trips. Wound up on Boat Quay, where I had a beer and a nice seafood noodle lunch.

Eventually took the train to the airport for my 11.40pm flight to Frankfurt, arriving before 4pm.

It may seem silly, but even five hours wasn’t long enough to absorb the airport. Spent a lot of time in the Jewel. It’s a fantastic, decadent retail fantasy. As well, there’s the very cool waterfall, which drops through the centre of the complex and falls all the way to the basement, surrounded by lush foliage and thousands of gaping tourists (like me).

For the 12-hour flight to Fraankfurt, I was on an Airbus 380-800. It’s said to be the biggest plane in the world, carrying more than 500 passengers. I knew that because I had a look on the appropriate website to try to get myself the best seat. I’d been allocated a window seat, but I wanted an aisle seat in the centre section so I could get myself out for the required peeing and stretching with the minimum of other people crawling over me.

Eventually I booked myself seat 96G. Strangely, when I looked at seating maps, the plane only went as far as row 94. Turned out, there’s an upper storey, where first class and business class hang out, as well as rows 95-99 for economy class.

Me and my upper-level mates got priority boarding. Ascending our spiral staircase, our lucky little group were seated in something like a private lounge. Incredibly, on a fully-booked plane, I had an empty seat beside me.

It was midnight when we took off. I set my watch to 6pm, local time in Frankfurt. By 9pm (my time), everyone was settling down to sleep, full of food and wine. I’d already watched the movie Collette, which I’d wanted to see.

I had no trouble dozing off, and though I never fell into a deep sleep, managed 6-7 hours of semi-consciousness.

Breakfast was pretty good – lots of spinach with the scrambled eggs. Fitted in the movie Three Billboards Near Ebbing, Missouri, which was great.

It’s a strange thing that our ancestors spent months travelling to New Zealand – about 200 of them packed into a wooden shell. How would they feel at the news that less than 200 years later, more than 500 people could pack into a shell bigger than their little boat, take to the skies and find themselves on the other side of the world in about 24 hours?

Felt pretty good with the day ahead, so got myself a two-day pass and negotiated the Frankfurt trains to my hotel.

Things looked extremely quiet. Turned out it was a public holiday. The rather clueless receptionist at the hotel said it was Dead Day. Later on I found that Dead Day was a public holiday in November and it was in fact Ascension Day, a semi-religious Day that doubles as Fathers Day. Everything was closed.

As well, the hotel computer system and wifi were down and she couldn’t get anyone to fix it. She couldn’t (wouldn’t) check me in early – said I’d have to wait until 2pm.

I was feeling very dozy by then, but made myself go out. Discovered the tram system and wandered aimlessly. Had a coffee and a sandwich, but found myself back at the hotel by 12.30pm.

Managed to talk myself into a room, had an overdue shower, washed all my clothes and had a lovely three-hour sleep.

And here I am. Got a couple of beers from downstairs, turned on BBC News and typed up progress so far.

Sorry this is such a long blog – I still have no way to get it online as wifi here is still out. I’m going out to find food.

Turkish pizza and a big beer – think I’ll sleep well. 16,000 steps.

Friday May 31

Still no wifi at the hotel. Spent the day cruising around on trams and trains, getting on and off wherever it looked interesting.

It’s frustrating not being able to speak the language, but it’s been a fairly easy day – ready for the move to Spain tomorrow.

Saturday June 1

I've arrived at St Jean Pied de Port - the start of my real journey. Wifi here is slow, but it least it works. I've put all my photos so far into an unedited album (sorry about that, but it takes too long with the slow speeds to edit it properly - here's the photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/U57QnqWkqwtWmsUo9

More coming up in the next blog