28,500km: that’s how many I’ve
done this Festive Season; not on foot of course, and I dread to think about my carbon footprint, but...
Staggering and impressive; an eye-watering 9 flights on 7
different carriers, spanning 3 alliances, 1 budget & 1 non-aligned
airlines; visited 4 cities (or towns); and proceeded through passport control
on 3 continents.
It wasn’t your average Christmas / New Year break,
really. Thanks to airmiles, however, it
was doable at relatively reasonable cost – and booking well in advance (for my
Norwegian and BA sectors, at least) saved me a fortune.
My first journey was perhaps the most complicated in the
sense that I skipped aboard airlines from SkyTeam,
Star Alliance and one world. But rather surprisingly and definitely
welcomed, was the ability at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) with
Kenya Airways, to check my baggage all the way to Miri, Sarawak, Borneo,
Malaysia – a long list of geo-locations, but I like to be specific.
I must confess I was a tad sceptical that my luggage would
appear at the other end – and since I was headed for a wedding was also rather
anxious. My suit, tie, cufflinks,
collar-stiffners and other “wedding accoutrements” could end up at my
destination hours or even days after the nuptials had been completed.
But they were there – at the exact same time I was. Amazing. Thank you KQ (#kenyaairways).
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| Baju melayu, samping & songkok |
The wedding was a Malay affair with a million blooms,
elegant females in hip-hugging frocks and dashing men in baju melayu or batik
shirts – a burst of colour, putting Notting Hill Carnival to shame.
And yet, I was only there for a couple of days before
driving to Brunei to catch my connecting flight in Bangkok on Thai Airways to
Oslo – yes, you read it correctly, Norway of all places.
Eschewing the balmy C35° of Borneo, I
stepped out of Oslo airport to collect my hire car with a brisk C-2° shooting up my ill-prepared nostrils. They had needed half-an-hour to de-ice and
warm up my vehicle and I was glad they had done it.
I grappled with the left-hand drive and manual gears, and
headed south on the E6 towards Oslo centre – or sentrum as we say in Norway.
I was in town in about 30 minutes and began to get my
bearings. My parents joined me later
that afternoon, so I had a little time to cram in some culture. The Munch Museum was for me. The famous and infamous (for being stolen at
gun-point back in 2004) painting The
Scream was hankered for.
I entered the gallery only to find the canvass I’d braved
the Oslo slippery ice-fondant streets for, was being restored. Bloody typical.
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| Screaming for The Scream |
Leaving the gallery, after succumbing to the obligatory mug
and fridge magnet purchases, I headed back to the airport to collect mam &
dad. I was, unexpectedly, rewarded with
a night sky show of the aura borealis – albeit a tad too far south and far less
spectacular than in Trondheim or somewhere equally arctic-circle-ish.
Norway was super: great food, charming people, impeccable
infrastructure & clinical efficiency.
It was, simultaneously, possibly the most expensive place I’ve been to
on planet earth. Move over Tokyo,
Singapore & New York, Oslo will rape your wallet quicker than those pesky
Vikings ever did in Northumbria all those centuries ago.
Still, we enjoyed it – and it’s somewhere I’d love to see in
the summer; the snow over Christmas was perfect, crisp and Bing-Crosby-ish –
just as it should be. ;-)
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| Welcome to the snow |
We then proceeded to Cumbria and “home”. I put it quotations, merely because it’s
“real” home – whoops there I go again.
And I now officially have three of them.
Sigh. Or should that be LOL?!
It was great to see the fells, the lakes, my school-friends,
my family and the windmills. Cumbria is
awash with them – and these huge white giants, waving their arms about are a
fixture on the landscape – so much so, you hardly notice their whirring purring
presence.
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| Keswick and me |
Finally, it was off south to the most impressive, fantastic,
compelling city on earth: London.
My other half and I were scheduled for a front-row seat for
the pyrotechnics to usher in 2015 and we couldn’t wait. Following dinner, we scrambled outside to
brave the plunging temperatures to get a ringside view. And we were not disappointed.
Perhaps the brightest, best-coordinated, most raucous show
of fireworks I have ever seen burst above the river Thames, reflected in it and
reverberated around it.
Whizzes, screeches, whirls, flashes, sparks and more lit up
the London sky – so vividly and with such incandescence, you could read your
newspaper in the nocturnal luminescence.
Oh, that rhymes – how quaint.
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| Just opposite the London Eye - eye-watering! |
Selfridges, Peter Jones, the King’s Road, Regent Street,
Carnaby Street – all saw far too many purchases. While a theatre treat on New Year’s Day to
see the new and provocative production of King
Charles III, was especially wonderful.
We ate Italian in Knightsbridge, Indian in Fulham, Chinese
in the West End, Gordon Ramsay in Battersea and English fayre in Piccadilly. Friends and merriment were bountiful and the
New Year started with a bang – as it’s supposed to I guess.
As I sit in the First Class lounge at Heathrow, about to
travel “home” to Nairobi [thanks (again) to my other half] sipping a
beautifully chilled kir royal, I’m thankful in so many ways and on so many
levels.
What a whirlwind Yuletide I’ve had; what a mesmeric hailing in
of a new year; what a splendid marvellous cacophony of friends, family, loved
ones, experiences and more I’ve had.
Thank you 2014 for being rather splendiferous and watch out
2015 – you have a lot to live up to.
I
rather think you will!
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