Flo around the world 08

[flo]

Flo's world tour 2008
1. Introduction
2. The trip begins!
3. OS 603 - The Moscow Express
4. Moscow Domodedovo - Experiences
5. SQ 61 - Breaking my SQ hiatus!
6. Killing time in Singapore
7. SQ 112 - The KUL Shuttle & KUL for one day!
8. SQ 119 - The flight back to SIN
9. Singapore. My city of dreams.
10. More SIN T3 action
11. SQ 221 - Riding the whale.
12. QF 415 - to MEL in the morning.
13. Melbourne galore. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
13. QF 402 - to SYD.
14. Connecting in SYD.
15. NZ 704 - doing the tasman.
16. Flo all alone in AKL.
15. NZ 2 - crossing the timeline on my first trans pacific.
16. Los Angeles. Yes. Exactly.
17. UA22 - My first real business class flight.
18. New York, New York. (continued)
19. SQ 25 - The most awesome flight ever. (scroll down!) (continued)
20. The coming home & Resumé. (scroll down!)

Coming up next:
[ JAN 09 ] Flo enjoys NYE in New York & flies LX Business Class
[ MAR 09 ] Flo and petz cross Istanbul off their list (and try TK)
[ APR 09 ] Flo takes on the world again & experiences godlike treatment on SQ C, SQ F and LH C
[ AUG 09 ] Flo 'n' friends visit Korea and Japan for the first time.

[jhm]

Wunderbar!

[jjpb3]

I see you had great taste even then. Was für ein niedliches Kind!

[andySYD]

Looking forward to this TR - btw are some pictures missing on your post?

[StarG]

That is a very nice picture of you inside one of SQ's older Jumbo Jet!
Have a safe, enjoyable & exciting RTW trip, flo.

Looking forward to the rest of your TR.

[SQflyergirl]

Safe travels FB! Sorry I can't be in KUL to meet you, but we'll catch up at the end of the year okie doke? In the meantime, really looking forward to your TR

[tokyonite]

hey dude,
mind telling us how much did you (** mum's cd card) pay for the ticket?

thankszzzzzzzzzz.

safe trip tho. gd luck and enjoy

[taipeiflyer]

can't wait to see you buddy. hope you have a great start to trip... i'm certain it will be great when we meet up in sin and mel. btw, great pic from when you were a child on sq.

[flo]

Preeeeeeeeeeesenting...

The one and only, legen... wait for it ...dary trip report of the guy who uses his real name on internet forums. Romance, travel, excitement, reunions, new faces and much more included free of charge of course.

I guess most people around here already know who I am. I will briefly introduce myself anyway for those who don't because this is indeed a very special occasion for me and for SQTalk: this is actually one of the rare opportunities you will have to see how Y travel looks like, given the hope for godlike treatment, amuses bouches, champagne, premium class lounges and WheneverWhereverWhatever hotel stays you can find here without searching too hard!

1. Enter the Flo!
My name is Florian and I am from Austria. I am a student at Vienna Uni and I do my master in Integrated Communication with English studies and political science as minors. Well, I am also registered as a student of Business Administration but I just do that for the funzies. Besides studying, I work for a communications agency that primarily focuses on medical/pharmaceutical PR and lobbying.

This is me, sitting in front of my professor's desk at uni.

My personal background lies deep within my childhood when my parents traveled a lot and took me and my sister along with them. Mostly, our travels were bound for Australia as most of my relatives (used to) live in Melbourne and Brisbane. We used to fly SQ a lot but never in premium classes which is perfectly fine to me.

This is me when I was young... I always loved SQ!

I am happy with what I get and flying economy is not a question of whY? to me but rather the chance to minimize my expenses. For me as a student, this is okay as I will be flying suites only once I finished my concept on how I will be attempting to rule the world...

No kidding.

2. Trip preperations!
Right now, I am at work, writing a trip report (duh!). The last few days were pretty rough for me as I had to finish up all my work, acquire a new customer for the firm I am going to leave as of September, meet all sorts of people who wanted to hang out before I went away for a month and last but most important, finishing up my first bachelor's thesis. I actually have to write two of those babies and my professor said it should be about 30 +-10 pages long. Well, mine has 80 pages because my topic simply cannot be elaborated in less. I just printed it out and I am just about to going to the copyshop to get a nice cover for it.

Yes, as a guy, it's pretty hard to manage various processes at the same time given the fact that multitasking skills are undoubtably a strength of the girls. But I managed to do well... at least I think so. I received a lot of A's and very positive feedback from my boss yesterday for my work at his company and I constantly get confronted with the question on how I even manage to do this many things at one time. Well, KeithMEL and SQFlyergirl probably know that my sleep pattern is quite unusual.

Well, I booked an E-Ticket on United a few months ago with my mother's credit card as mine did not support the spending limit for this trip. So I had the problem that I might had to show my mothers cc at various airports for confirmation. Yes, this is a new-ish United policy to minimize credit card fraud. Anyway, my mother hardly ever uses her credit card ... we are cash-only people here in Austria ... but she felt uncomfortable to giving me hers because sometimes I tend to lose things. So I called up United to tell me what to do about that when the lady told me to go to VIE in advance together with my mother so that they can set the option that I confirmed the cc owner or something.

My mother and I arrived at the VIE city check-in terminal and explained the situation. The OS lady looked discombobulated by my request and asked a colleague about this. They told me that UA is "a bisl deppat, die Deppen da drüben wissen ja selbst net was woi'n" which is a direct quote of Austrian-German... so in English this would be "they are a bit stupid, these morons over there don't even know what they want". Meaning: there was nothing, OS could do for me. Great.

Called up UA again and the nice lady told me she'd send me a paper ticket. This telephone call was made on a friday afternoon when everybody was ready to head home so I was mostly surprised to find my paper tickets in my mailbox on Monday already. Great work, United!

As paper ticket times are coming to an end and my last trips were E-Tix only, I thought it might be nice to show you some pictures of my baby:

And because my trip starts in a bit less than two days, I am currently waiting for the Singapore Airlines online check-in which should open in about 45 minutes. I already reserved my seats for my leg to Moscow-Domodedovo which will be operated by an Austrian Airlines Airbus 320. I reserved seat 10A but I will change to seat to 9A once I get to the airport. Row 9 is pre-blocked because it's the exit row and the first row of economy class.

I will keep you guys posted 'on the fly', literally speaking. I will do my best to update this thread on a regular basis with photos and anecdotes.

So ... what to expect of the things to come:

Aviation-wise:
- Singapore Airlines Y cabins (haha)
- Singapore Airlines 77W, 772, 380 and the 744
- Air New Zealand, Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa, SAS
- United p.s. business class

People I will meet on my travels:
- Karoline, a gorgeous friend I haven't seen in ages from Tyrol/Austria who has an internship in Singapore!
- Megan, an ex-SQ FA who studies in Vienna now.
- Kyo, 9V-JKL and the rest of the SIN crew I will meet in Singapore...
- KeithMEL, taipeiflyer, singaporu_kooku and the MEL folks!
- jhm and phaleesy in NY
- ... and various star guests I will reveal later on (haha).

Places:
- A night in KL.
- The return to Singapore. The first time without parents!
- Melbourne, the place I lost my heart at
- Auckland, because New Zealand is simply awesome.
- Los Angeles, because *sing* I've never been to the US-Ayyy, I am a slave on a minimum wage. Detroit, New York and L-Ayyyy, but I'm stuck in the You-Kaaaay.*sing*
- New York, the place I always wanted to see.

3. Thanks!
At last I wanted to thank all the people who assisted me with my travel preperations. KeithMEL and SQFlyergirl, SQTalk's very own angels. "Thanks for all the fish!" (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

singaporu_kooku for being spontaneous
phaleesy and jhm for a NY trip I really really look forward to!
Kyo for organizing a mini-SIN-Do and an aferparty at Château de Kyo Singapour.

A very very warm thank you to a guy who made my UA upgrade possible. I am not sure if he wants to earn some credits but this thank you goes out to you!

And thanks to all of you guys here on SQTalk! You are by far the best community I've ever been a part of. I just love it here and I am glad I found the way to you. I am thankful for the way how warm you welcomed me around here and excused all my spelling and grammar mistakes... THANK YOU!

... and of course a whole bunch of people who are not on SQTalk like my parents, my sister, Raffael, Petz (who actually is on SQTalk), Kristina, Sophie, Wolfgang, Daniela, Melanie and everybody I forgot



(had to move this post because of the index!)

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hey dude,
mind telling us how much did you (** mum's cd card) pay for the ticket?

thankszzzzzzzzzz.

safe trip tho. gd luck and enjoy

well i paid it ... but i had to pay it from her card stupid student visa ... only has a spending limit of 2000 euros. i paid about 2400 euros all-in.

[jhm]

well i paid it ... but i had to pay it from her card stupid student visa ... only has a spending limit of 2000 euros. i paid about 2400 euros all-in.

You can get around this I think by paying in the money before you spend it.

[flo]

Yes, SQFlyergirl told me about it but it was too late anyway

Unfortunately the OLCI did not work because of my prior OS flight. Bummer. Now I'll have to gamble to get good seats at the airport.

[impresta]

Have a pleasant flight!

[KeithMEL]

Safe travels - can't wait to see you in MEL!

[singaporeairlinesboi]

I remember when SQ would give those snap on model of the 747. Sighs........

[UMD]

Wishing you a good trip. We might still be able to meet in Singapore if I don't need to be in KL on the 6th.