Our flight was scheduled for 9.20 pm so we agreed to leave around 3.30 from home. I had a new, soft ‘hold-all’ style case that I was using for the first time. It’s not quite what I was expecting as it splits in two, has mesh over both halves, and so needs packing a different way than a normal case. I got there eventually but with a couple of things not in there that I was considering whether to take or not. Following a phone call from DW, I decided to put stuff in his case, as he had a lot of room, I could use it if I wanted.
I was collected around 3.30, we loaded the car and set off. The drive to the car parking was fairly straightforward until we tried to find the reception. Following the details we had, we ended up at a gate with a sign saying that they had relocated to the Holiday Inn with a post code. Putting it into the phone maps we retraced our footsteps and found the Holiday Inn but with no sign of the parking. We were expecting a building with reception etc. There were a couple of police cars so I went across to ask them. They were not helpful as they didn’t know and were dealing with a prisoner, so suggested we ask at the hotel reception. The man on the door said he thought it was at the bottom of the road so we drove down and asked a family who appeared to be waiting if this was the car park. They said it was and a young man came over and confirmed that we should park the car and sort out the paperwork. As we were doing that, the van left so we finished, got our bags and went to stand by the entrance waiting for the van to return. It was about 20 minutes before it came back, loaded up our gear and took us to Terminal 3.
Check in was fairly easy, all automated with us having to print out the baggage label, fix it to the bag and then take the bag to the conveyor where we had to put it on the belt and press a button to send it on its way.
Security was fairly quick and relatively painless and we were soon in the main hall. We decided to go for a drink and a snack as we would have a meal on the plane. We chose to share a small platter of 6 battered prawns with mayo, a bowl of chipolatas in a honey and mustard glaze and a small bucket of chips with a cup of tea. Then it was time to walk along to gate 32 where we met up with Chris and Sarah, did a quick catch up, queuing in a longline, boarding the plane, finding our seats and settling down for the flight to São Paulo. Take off went fine and we were on our way.
We were served an evening meal of chicken salad, mainly chicken with tomato slice and a bit of leaf before settling down to try and sleep. I managed a few hours before waking up, going to the loo and then dozing on and off until time for breakfast of ham and cheese sandwich, fruit and a lemon cake, which was stuck to the base of the tray with a cup of tea that tasted herbal of some sort.
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