the longest journey begins with a bumpy 14 hours to Dubai

finally got here in one piece...finally, was all a bit of a disaster, flight circled Birmingham for an hour then got sent up to Newcastle, managed to land a 777-300 on a too short runway, that was an experience, stopped a few feet short of the grass at the end of the runway... sat on the apron for 2.5 hours before getting off with the offer of a coach back to Birmingham....Newcastle to Birmingham on a coach....in the snow...no thanks.
So i made a dash on the Newcastle metro to Newcastle central, avoided the drunks and got a train to Birmingham, arrived 14+ hours later than imagined, twas a long 48 hours of travel!