This trip was all a bit of a last-minute decision. I still had a day of leave left that I needed to take before the year is over. It just so happened that Graham’s birthday fell on a Friday this year. I booked his birthday off and requested for my days off that week to be Saturday and Sunday. Once the roster was published and I could see that my request had been granted, I told Graham that I wanted to take him on a weekend away for this birthday. He had a special birthday this year and he is not the easiest person to buy presents for, but like me, he loves to travel. This seemed like a win win situation. I asked him to give some thought where he may wish to go. He gave me a shortlist of three destinations and the flights to go to Tuscany worked out best. He was happy with this, and I got booking.
Graham had taken the week leading up to his birthday off, but I still had to work an early shift that day. We arranged to meet at the airport. Fortunately, I do work quite close to the airport. Normally I would have walked to the local tram stop and taken the tram to the airport from there, but it was raining pretty heavily. I decided to treat myself to an Uber. Pretty much as soon as I got out of the Uber, I saw Graham waiting for me. I went to meet him and then we headed inside the terminal.
We were only traveling with a small backpack each that had to fit under the seat. I had got us new backpacks that conformed to the permitted dimensions. When they first arrived, my heart sunk, but it was surprising how much fit inside them. Because we only had the small backpacks, we could proceed straight through security. I normally do Fast Track, but having checked the waiting times throughout the previous week and then being between 0 and 15 minutes around the time we were getting there, I figured it would not be necessary. I was right. I was a little surprised though when we were sent downstairs. They have added another security check area. It took us longer to get down there and up again at the other end than it took us to get through the line. This time there were no unwelcome surprises either.
When we got to the part of the terminal where you can see the fore field, Graham was commenting on the very colourful plane that was waiting to taxi out to the runway. I told him that this was an Emirates plane. Our livery is pretty iconic. There are a number of special edition versions to celebrate special events or causes that Emirates support, but they all have the classic livery with some embellishments. This one is different. The whole plane is covered in bright colours and has an almost cartoon-like quality to it. This plane was promoting the Expo 2020. I could not get a good angle on the plane, and I have borrowed a photo from our website.
I was hoping we would have an early dinner at Giraffe. I like this place. Unfortunately, Graham had something to eat on the way in. He did offer that he was happy to sit with me, but having a sit-down dinner by myself just did not feel quite right. I noticed that the Burger King had now reopened. It had been a while since I had been to terminal one and Burger King was still closed then. I had the Crispy Steakhouse Chicken sandwich with fries and some Mezzo Mix Zero. Graham had found us a table in the food court opposite. We sat down and I enjoyed my tea.
Once I had finished my food, we found somewhere to sit. Our gate was not listed yet. We found some seats in the area most EasyJet flights seem to go from. Graham mentioned that there had been two new books in the series that started with my all-time favourite book, The Pillars of the Earth. I decided to check this out. The first new book, which is set before The Pillars of the Earth, was a fair price and I bought this. The other one, which is a sequel, is currently crazily priced. I will wait a bit for this. With the shopping out of the way, I read for a bit until our gate was listed.
Our gate was not too far from where we had been sitting. This gate was a bit of an unusual set up in that the seating was behind where they scan the boarding passes. When we got to the gate, there was a bit of a line, but it moved very quickly. Once we had checked in with the gate agent, we were advised to sit down. A few minutes later, boarding started. I don’t think I have ever seen boarding completed that quickly on a full plane. Once everybody was on board, the captain made an announcement that we were ready to go and Manchester airport had an earlier slot for us, but that as there was a lot of congestion over northern Italy, we had been asked to hold. He explained that air traffic control was in touch with their counter parts all over Europe and if any other flights were delayed, we may still be able to leave ahead of schedule. It looks like there were some delays as we were allowed to push off about 5 minutes later, which was still ahead of schedule.
The flight was very smooth. I started out the flight by playing a game on my iPad and then read for a bit. I then took a nap and only woke up when we were already descending into Pisa. Graham slept most of the flight, too. Getting off was just as quick and easy as boarding. However, this is where it became somewhat comical. Pisa airport is a small regional airport. However, they decided to take us by bus from the aircraft to the terminal. When we got off the bus, there were multiple tight switchbacks in front of the terminal building. Once we were inside, it was smooth sailing again. All immigration desks were staffed and even though two flights from the UK had arrived at the same time, we did not have to wait long to get to the front of the queue. We did not have any luggage to collect and were able to head straight out to the taxi rank.
The line for the taxis looked impressive, but moved quickly and about 10 minutes later, we were on the way to our hotel. This did not take long either. We checked in and headed up to our room to get some sleep.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
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