THE WEEKEND: Never mind the length, you're gonna wanna read this!

FIRSTLY, HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY! Would've been in Ireland right now with my mates if we were even TALKING. I was about to Superpoke Sherel on Facebook to 'dye everything green' with her for St. Paddies when I realised I couldn't find her on my list, which means she deleted me from hers. What can I really say to that? Nothing, right? SO, on with the weekend.

My friend Lewis had his 61st birthday party on Saturday night, the night before my early morning flight, Okay so he's not actually 61. He was sharing a birthday party with two other friends and their ages added up to 61 lol. Anyways there were several undecided themes including an Old Fogies theme, a 'Tattoo Yourself' theme (which I wanted to do but figured I didn't want any trouble with irritable black body paint hours before I was due to head to the airport. There was also a Zoo Animal theme and about three others I can't recall. I just went as someone with a glittery face and a pale pink wig anyways. And I would post the few pictures I managed to snap while not swigging empty a bottle of Peach Schnapps or lying on a sofa in a dreamy haze as the room swirled with ambient tracks, but my ex just told me I looked gross.

So, needless to say, even though I decided to call it quits at 2am and trudged home in the rain, where I proceeded to argue with my ex on skype while srcubbing at my face for bed, and set my alarm for 5:30am in order to leave the house at 6:30am to get to the airport two hours before my flight, I woke up two hours before my flight. I scrambled my shit together, called a cab, which got me to the airport precisely at the time the check-in counter closed, because they like to close an hour before the flight now. Of course I had to pay the driver, but I didn't have any cash on me so this is where the debit card drama begins...

Apparently HSBC decided to de-activate my card that morning because in the airport I tried to take out a whole load of cash at once for my trip; like 350 pounds. The daily limit is 200 pounds. So I went back to the taxi swinging my arms, my fingers trembling, my scarf over my newly done hair because it was pouring, hard!

"Um, my card isn't working. They won't give me any money."

The driver, sitting on my suitcase in his open trunk, didn't move, his arms folded.

Luckily, after long pauses and quiet rain, we established that I was able to give my card details to his company via phone and that worked. It came up to 32 pounds, all to miss mt flight in the first place. ALL FOR NOTHING!

So after that incident I called up HSBC, because SHIT I was travelling to DUBAI, the shopping capital of the world, with no money. I sat in a restaurant, counted out 8 pounds in my coin purse and ordered a vegetarian breakfast, while listening to the 'On Hold' lounge music on the phone. They said they detected fraud because I had tried to take out so much money and that it would be fixed in 10 minutes. And naturally, it wasn't, so I called back several times, until eventually, 20 minutes before I was scheduled to get on the next flight, at 3pm(!) it finally worked.

Anyways, I skipped out a few details. According to my ex, I had an airhead moment at the restaurant. I ordered another coke and told the waitress I was just going to pop into the bathroom really quick, which was two paces away from my table. I left my overly loaded trolley there to keep my table and when I came back two minutes later, there were three people around my table telling me I had nearly caused a potential bomb scare.

RIGHT! And LASTLY, while waiting for possibly 5 hours on the floor in Heathrow, next to an old arab man and a clueless Indian young man, we heard dogs. Possibly feisty, mammoth ones with strings of saliva swinging like a pendulum from their gaping mouths. We heard them from miles away. And they were booming, and echoing. Eventually, my ideas of what they were became a horrifying reality. They roamed through the frantically swerving wheeled suitcases and the backpacked toddlers hidden in their mothers' skirts. Suited up guards with awesomely mammoth guns with magnifying lenses attached to them accompanied them. They were looking for someone. Only then did I remember that having had to rush this morning to get here, I hadn't had much time to mask the weed smell in my hair from the previous night's partying. I fidgeted behind the pages of my Hanif Kureishi novel, reading the same sentence over and over again due to lack of concentration. I knew they weren't looking for me. Becuase it was already established that I wasn't a debit card fraud, I wasn't a terrorist, and they could've given me 10 urine tests and wouldn't have found a TRACE of drugs in my quivering innards. But of course, a huge black gun passed dangerously close to my face, and there stood a guard, staring down at the three of us; the Arab, the Indian and the Trinidadian.

"Are you three together?"

"Um what? No," I cowered into my novel.

He clearly lost interest in me and asked the Indian for his passport. He didn't have it. I muttered swear words. WHY WAS I HERE? NEXT TO THESE PEOPLE, WITHOUT PASSPORTS?! WHY!? WHY DID I HAVE TO MISS MY FLIGHT? I SHOULDN'T BE HERE. WHAT IF HIS DOG JUMPS ON MY MUSTY GANJA'D HEAD? WHY DID I HAVE TO WAKE UP LATE? WHY DID I GO TO THAT PARTY? WHAT WAS I THINKING WEARING THAT MUCH GLITTER? IT'S IN MY EYE!

But it was all okay in the end. He pointed to his dad in a check-in line and said his dad had his passport and that he was just waiting to go to New Zealand. And the dog clearly sucked at its job.

And FINALLY! FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY I sat, unperturbed in the beauty and luxury that was the Etihad airplane, in an aisle seat, perfect for all the peeing I had to do after knocking back copious amounts of red wine, with my own little booth and reclining bed, and my own little entertainment system, and my own little coat closet(not that I needed one). I. SLEPT. WELL. I. ATE. WELL. Risotto? Date Cheesecake? Fine cheeses? REALLY! As my dad is a pilot for the airline, I usually get severely discounted staff tickets and enjoy the niceties of Business Class (provided that it's not full). Sometimes I can get upgraded to First, which is just..indescribable. It's the only thing that makes me NOT want to get to my destination, having to lounge there for hours; my only problems being deciding what to pick from the extensive menu and being checked up on too often by the over eager hostesses.

It's all well and dandy but as I'm representing my dad and the airline, jeans and sneakers are out of the question, and uncomfortable business-esque clothing is in. So this is what I wore. I am really excited about it because I have been eyeing this cornelli and lace top on the Topshop website for ages! And now that I've quit my lenten shopping ban, I grabbed it off the racks the day before travelling. Isn't it gorgeous? *sighs*

What a day huh? I even forgot to mention that they made me check in my violin because I was a standby passenger and could only take one carry-on, EVEN though it was an expensive instrument (which I normally get to take on with me) and I threw a tantrum, which resulted in the guy telling me I'll miss my flight if I didn't agree with him and check it in. And naturally, when I opened up the 'Fragile' plastered violin case at home in Abu Dhabi, it was semi-wrecked. As a result it will have to accompany me to the US at some point this year to get professionally fixed, AS A CARRY-ON! HMPH! I don't even want to open that case again to take a picture for you. Violins are SO expensive...