Day 0: Departure

Boring day at home. All packing and chores were completely done by midday, so we had a long afternoon of time-killing. Watched Archer and had a lazy bum around.

Arrived at the airport at 6:30pm, no queue at check-in and only minor delay at security. Was "randomly" selected for bomb swabs three times out of three. Security man didn't seem that impressed when I mentioned this in passing!

Boarded A380 at 9pm and took off right on schedule at 9:45. Took off south over water in the dark so no views unfortunately.

The A380 is an amazing aircraft. We were sitting right on the wing, and there was barely any engine noise. The aircon was much louder than the engines, and was fucking freezing to boot. There was an iPad sized touchscreen in every seat back, with loads of movies, TV shows, music, info, communications etc. Updated news headlines from the BBC, plus live feeds from cameras on the nose, tail and underbelly of the aircraft. Very interesting, but not that much use for a night flight!

Played Tetris versus Shandos (1-1 after 2 games), watched Catfish and a doco about the Manchester derby starring Eric Cantona. And a Simpsons episode!

Had fish for dinner, Shandos had the lamb korma. Food was average quality, not the best but tasty enough. Played a few games on iPhone but fell asleep around 5 hours into the flight (3am Sydney time). Dozed on and off for the next 6 hours, eventually couldn't sleep more at 9am Sydney time. Had omelet for breakfast, watched Entourage and Shandos finished The King's Speech as we killed the last hour before landing into the darkness at Dubai. 4:40am local time, 40 minutes ahead of schedule.Read more