The seats on the Lufthansa A380 are nowhere near as good as on Singapore Airlines but none the less I managed to sleep for most of 9 hours. I skipped dinner. I eventually woke about 3am German time or 9 Am Singapore/Perth time. Since we were landing before 6am and would get breakfast, I decided not to try for more sleep, but watched the quirky but delightful movie Moonrise Kingdom.Breakfast was quite substantial and tasty and then I killed some time until we started to land. During the descent I tried to blow with pinched nose to equalise the pressure and started a nose bleed. A bit of an inconvenience but the cabin staff bought tissues and some ice and it stopped until I got up after we landed when it started again.
It took me about 45 minutes to get from the landing gate to the Lounge near the departure gate and I didn't even change terminals. It is a very large airport. On the way I bought a small bottle of Jameson's in the duty free.
While I was in the lounge I caught up with email, facebook and of course this blog. I also managed to write and article for the next Mensa magazine issue.
I headed for the departure lounge, which wasn't very far away, about 30 minutes before we were due to take off. Boarding hadn't started and I met a couple of other Mensans I knew from last year - from Indonesia and the US. I didn't meet Pam who had told me she would be on the flight. It turns out there were problems in Dallas and her flight was delayed and she missed that connection. She should be here by now some 10 hours later than planned.
I wasn't expecting much from the business class on Croatian. Sure I got to use the lounge (big plus) had extra luggage and it was off the plane early but usually these small intracontinental planes don't have the flash seats you get in the long haul aircraft. Typically the 3 seats are converted to 2 for the front few rows. Even these low expectations failed to be met with the same seats and the same meals as the rest of the plane. The difference was that there were 6 of us in the first 3 rows where as the rest of the plane was pretty well full.
I took some photos from the window as we got close to landing. The view was quite spectacular with long islands or peninsulas strung out along the Adriatic sea. The photos didn't really capture the true beauty. The sea was dead calm.Once we landed it was a short bus ride, then a short queue at passport control. My golf bag was already out when I got to baggage collection and the case appeared soon after. Then it was straight through the green lane and there was someone holding a sign with about 6 Mensa names on it. I got some cash from he ATM while we waited for the others.
We had a minivan and the trip to the hotel was around 1/2 hour, along a winding coast road with views of the sea and the mountains. I took a lot of photos but the railing, other cars, bushes and so forth resulted in a lot of bad ones.Perpetually we got within site of the old Walled city and there is a large island not far offshore. Between the 2 of these was a white cruise liner.
The hotel is on the other side of the town and the other side of a mountain. You travel along a road past a few other hotels to its end.
I was checked in and taken to my room which is quite comfortable. Like most of the rooms in this hotel I have a balcony with a sea view and this is spectacular. The sea is blue and not far away is a small sickle shaped Island with a few smaller ones in a chain. You can also see the opposite bay with more hotels.
No comments:
Post a Comment