{"id":243,"date":"2009-03-30T20:49:25","date_gmt":"2009-03-30T20:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2009\/03\/30\/on_arrival\/"},"modified":"2009-03-30T20:49:25","modified_gmt":"2009-03-30T20:49:25","slug":"on_arrival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2009\/03\/30\/on_arrival\/","title":{"rendered":"On arrival"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was about a week ago (the time difference plays havoc with my internal calendar) that we said goodbye to the vineyards and the outlaws, climbed aboard a Q300<\/a> and took the (relatively) short flight up to Auckland, where we tried to avoid the giant crocs<\/p>\n

\n\"Giant<\/a>
\ngiant croc at AKL<\/em><\/p>\n

\nand, seeing as we had eight hours to kill before the flight out, hired a car for the day and drove up to Takapuna, where there’s a church that looks exactly<\/em> like the one in Sione’s Wedding<\/a>, and a view of Rangitoto<\/p>\n

\n\"Rangitoto\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nthat can’t be beat. Rangitoto is a dormant volcano, which means\u2014as we told the Pawns\u2014that it could blow any minute. That’s probably stretching it a bit, but the girls seemed completely unfazed by the thought of fire and brimstone<\/del> and volcanic rocks hurling through the air and lava flows across the bay, and watched it intently for signs of activity. <\/p>\n

\n\"albatross\"<\/a>
\nAlbatross<\/em><\/p>\n

\nThen we drove back across the harbour bridge and went up One Tree Hill<\/a> (the last time I was there, there was one tree on the top of the hill. It’s not there now, sadly). After that it was back to Auckland International and on board EK407\u2014the flight which three days previously had doinked its tail taking off from Melbourne\u2014for Dubai via Melbourne. Which is one hell of a long trip.<\/p>\n

\n\"Dubai\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nBut after a few hours in the lounge at Dubai we boarded a four-fifths empty 777 bound for London: after crossing the mouth of the Persian Gulf we flew up the side of Iran (which is surprisingly beautiful). I slept for an hour, and when I awoke we were approaching the Black Sea. I was too excited to sleep, and the flight was only seven hours, so I peered out of the window and watched Top Gear<\/em> until the coast of Holland hove into sight. And then it was no time at all until we were overflying the rolling green hills and plains of east England <\/p>\n

\n\"M11\"<\/a>
\nThis looks familiar<\/em><\/p>\n

\nand circling London<\/p>\n

\n\"Eye\"<\/a>
\nNo city like it<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI start work on Monday next week: I’ll see you at the RI<\/a>, twice<\/a>, and all I have to do now is find somewhere to live.<\/p>\n

\nI’m back. And<\/em> I have an iPhone<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was about a week ago (the time difference plays havoc with my internal calendar) that we said goodbye to the vineyards and the outlaws, climbed aboard a Q300 and took the (relatively) short flight up to Auckland, where we … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}