The road to Greece

Olympic Airways always had a terrible reputation in South Africa. The staff were extremely rude and unfriendly. We bitched and moaned about them. But we didn't stop flying with them because they had a direct flight to Athens - you left Johannesburg in the evening and by early morning you were ready to order your first greek coffee. In 2009 Olympic Airways stopped their direct flight to JNB, and we never stopped bitching and moaning.

No other airline offers a direct flight to Athens. I decided to fly with Qatar because they had one of the shortest layover times (of course I booked at the last minute and all the short layovers were fully booked, lesson learned). We left home at 6pm on the Saturday evening and only finally arrived in Athens the Sunday evening just before 6pm, a 24 hour trip, exhausting, bring back Olympic!

Qatar Airlines far exceeded my expectations. The service was amazing, the seats are huge with lots of legroom, the plane was massive with all of the latest state-of-the-art features. Each seat has an entertainment station with endless options of music, tv series, movies, documentaries, news channels, games and much more - there is even a language learning facility!

Not only do you get great in flight entertainment but you get a complimentary little bag with a bunch of goodies inside Eye/Sleeping mask (wtf are those things actually called?), socks, earplugs (very useful in case of singing girls and squeally babies), and a toothbrush with toothpaste. No I didn't need any of those things but I am a sucker for free things! I am impressed to no end, cheap date I am.

Our flight was at 10pm and I was starving, my biggest concern was that I would fall asleep before the food service. Not on Qatar's watch! I slapped the 'Please wake me for the food service' sticker on my seat faster than bullshit spews out of Juju's mouth.

The flight was great overall and we arrived in Doha around 7am. Welcome to Doha!

Doha International Airport has got to be the busiest airport in the world. Every two minutes a flight took off, but bizarrely enough only Qatar Airlines was flying, we didn't see any other international airlines, weird. Apart from watching planes take off you can make use of the airport's free wifi, check into their fancy Oryx Lounge, or head to the canteen for breakfast That's what a 14 euro breakfast looks like...gulp... oh and the chips are standard no matter what your order, at 7am,weird.

My experience with Qatar Airlines was so fabulous, I will always fly with them from now on. My uncle was equally impressed, he couldn't believe we paid so little for such a great flight, his final conclusion is that the airline gets free petrol from the government!

Bye bye Olympic, Qatar please give us a direct flight!!

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Oumense, vroumense...

Dino, Goomy and I are flying to Athens via Qatar. It's an 8 hour flight. We had a state of the art airplane and were super impressed with the nifty gadgets provided for our onboard entertainment.

The first 3 hours were spent being fed and wearing off the initial excitement of over 300 movies, songs, sitcoms, audiobooks, games etc to choose from. I could hear a cellphone ringing faintly, harmapalarma! But an airhostess with supersonic hearing never leapt out of the shadows to reprimand the culprit. The cellphone kept ringing.

It was only around 3am (once the masses had started sleeping and the cabin was quiet) that I was able to pinpoint the culprit. It was a double discovery, Dino and I glared at each other at the exact same second...
"Oh my god"
"Is that?"
"Is she?"
"Oh my god she is!"
Together now: "SHE'S SINGING!!!!"

The chick sitting in front of us was getting her money's worth out of the audio options. Every time she got to the chorus, of each song, she would sing. Loudly (I heard her through my earphones that were set to almost max volume). At 3am. While everyone else was sleeping. The guy sitting next to her is making a voodoo doll of her and sticking needles in it's beady eyes. I would.

WANTED: for disturbing the peace:
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