Barcelona 1 - Leaving Dubai

I´m sat in the Cyber Centre of my hotel - it is the last morning of the course and this is the first time I have managed to get on the internet and actually have it working! I have about half an hour before it is back to work, so I can´t say a lot, especailly as I am using a Spanish keyboard and some keys are in a different place to those on my keyboard at home (I just had to look individually through the keys for a hyphen! Mind you, whilst doing so I found ¿ which I think is great!)

Anyway, I left Dubai on Thursday and, apart from a completely pointless trip to the worlds local bank (about which more later!) everything was fine. I got to the airport in plenty of time, check-in with Air France was stressless!!! The first reasonable check-in that I have had for years - well done Air France for making such a simple procedure... well, simple!

Then it was through, using the e-gate card and up to the Irish Village for breakfast - magnificent - bacon, sausages, black pudding, 2 eggs over easy (and cooked to perfection - plaudits to the IV chef ´cos so many chefs seem to bog that up) mushrooms, hash browns, beans, toast, various jams, tea and fresh orange juice and all for 44 dirhams or about 13 US dollars or about 6 GBP. An absolute bargain. Before long it was time to get the flight - flight was fairly empty, it left on time (I kid you not!!!), the food was fantastic - I honestly think that the food was the best airline food I have ever had (at least when travelling cattle class) so even more plaudits to Air France! I had a couple of those little bottles of red wine with the meal - now those of you who know me will also know that I like my red wine with ice. I didn´t really want to upset the French Air Hostess by asking for ice with my wine so I didn´t bother - imagine my surprise then when I found it to be chilled to perfection (as far as I am concerned!) After dinner the hostess asked me if I would like a brandy (I wouldn´t have even thought of it) and she gave me two of them.

All in all a very pleasaant trip. So for the third time, well done Air France.

Then we landed at Paris Charles de Gaulle...