AUSFAHRT! EINFAHRT!
As with all our motor home holidays there is always a theme and after much deliberation this one has, by default, become our Conformist Tour of Europe.
For those that know Roger, conforming and taking instruction or following orders is not something he does readily. While most of our holiday will be spent in Germany, the land of dictatorship, the first test of our ability to conform was experienced during a stopover en route in China.
At Shanghai airport the extremely slow processing of transfer passengers resulted in Roger deciding to go through the unmanned doors to stage two of security. I enquired from the airport authority, wearing a backpack with "PERVERT 17" emblazoned on it, if I needed to queue. He and a junior Kim Dotcom passenger said no because we had boarding passes, so I proceeded to follow Roger causing ten others to follow us. After getting to the 2nd layer of security we were turned back and made to stand in the middle of the security area, with guards, for a long time with no idea what was happening. We accepted our public humiliation with dignity and then sat in the gate lounge and watched more people being disciplined for breaching Asian security rules.
Finally boarding time arrived but I was not allowed to board and my bag was held in security for supposedly containing explosives. It turned out to be Roger’s bag which did have our feather duvet (well it would have 'exploded' had it been released prematurely from its vacuum pack). In order to cut the cable ties off the suitcase lock Roger rummaged through the security desk and produced a screwdriver and a switchblade; apparently they aren’t items of security risk but two small lithium batteries are. We were then sent off to board with our large bag which Air Austria made us leave in the boarding tunnel - farewell bag.
Air Austria is not a popular airline obviously as it had no premium economy, business or first class passengers. Our section of over 40s had 30 rows of seats of which only 4 had passengers and the under 40s down the back had a few more. Upon take off we managed to score a whole row of 10 seats to ourselves. Lunch included buttery/cheesy potatoes, hot buns with NZ butter, chocolate cake with pouring cream and many free beers for somebody. Afternoon tea fitted our holiday theme more; “there is a choice, the choice is to eat or not to eat, you choose?”
How can you say no to more hot steamy buns and passion fruit mousse?
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