BYE BYE FLIGHT CENTRE

FRIDAY 20th MAY

   Yet another day of booking hotels, checking all my travel arrangements and then going down to collect my tickets to Quito from Lima and back. It was down the old familiar road into Dunedin town centre, not for the last time but close to it.  But certainly my last visit to the Flight Centre and the delightful Laura! 

 

  She was most apologetic about her lapse with the Quito ticket and offered for me to pay directly on line.  I accepted but then the Lloyds' password was requested and I think I mixed up the Mastercard one with my Visa one, and as I didn't have the information with me, my notoriously bad memory must have confused the ruddy passwords.  Anyway the transaction was suspended and refused to admit further goes, which would have enabled me to try the other password.  I then broke out in a sweat wondering if Security might not have suspended my card.  I voiced these fears to Laura, who promptly offered me the phone to ring and check.  After entering the card number, my date of birth and gawd knows what else I finally got through to a human voice!  I told him the problem and he checked and told me there were no bars on the credit card.  He asked me if there was anything else he could do for me, so I asked him if he could raise the credit limit on my card to £8000, which to my amazement he did in a trice!  Laura told me it had been most instructive booking my flights as she had known little or nothing about South America before this!  She asked me if I had heard on the news that the end of the world had been predicted for the 21st.  I told her I hadn't, but hoped it was a false alarm as otherwise I would be wasting a lot of flights!  She said her mother was very worried as to where she would be on this date, but she said she had reassured her that there was no reason to worry.  I guess the end of the world has been predicted enough times in the past to lose an element of its credibility!

  I left with hotel voucher for the hotel in Rio as well as a voucher for the transport to the hotel which is picking me up at something like 3.00am at the airport and then driving me on over an hour's journey to the hotel.  It may cost $45 US but as far as I'm concerned it is money well spent.  By the time I got back home Scott was alraedy in.   I told him I'd like to take him out for a meal, and we went to a restaurant in town.  I had mussel starters, and he various chicken delicacies and we both opted for the Johnny Cash Stash!  These were chicken breasts stuffed with mushrooms and various other things, covered and fried in breadcrumbs, along with roast potatoes and salad.  Thankfully Scott had warned me to go for the medium sized portion, and even then I couldn't finish all my roast potatoes!  Just as we got in I heard Skype ringing on my computer.  It was Robert with whom I had a good chat and warned him I might be asking Jeannette to ring the hotel in Santiago to arrange an airport pick up if I couldn't speak to them in English.  I told him I'd e-mail the details if I failed to get through tomorrow.  He told me Bridie was on Skype and had been in touch with him!  My my, there's progress!  A few beers and the Canberra Raiders pulling off their second consecutive win saw the evening out.