Trip Report: Oslo (OSL) to Johannesburg (JNB) via Dubai (DXB) with Emirates in Economy class

I love traveling.  I really do.  My favorite destination is South Africa.  My least favorite part of traveling to South Africa is getting there, as it's a long journey from Norway.  On my first three trips south I flew via Frankfurt. The total flight time on that route is about 14 hours, where the bulk of that, about 11 hours, is from Frankfurt to Johannesburg.  I've flown with both Lufthansa and South African Airways from Frankfurt to Johannesburg, both are good airlines and I really didn't have any complaints about anything.

This year my plan was to visit South Africa September/October, which is springtime in South Africa, but sometime in late January/early February "South Africa fever" crept up on me.  I got in touch with my South African friends and after they said I was welcome to come visit for a couple of weeks over Easter and then I talked to my boss who gave me a couple of weeks off.

The next step was to find plane tickets.  As usual I ended up in Economy class.  This time I wound up with a new (for me) airline; Emirates.

I can't afford Business or First class tickets, and although I travel regularly it's enough to earn enough miles to upgrade. The only time I've experienced getting an upgrade was when I went to Rome in September '15 and the only reason I was upgraded then was because two colleagues discovered they were on the same flight and wanted to sit together.  They realized it would be easier to give me person A's Business class seat than it would be to try to persuade the person next to person A to move to person B's Economy class seat and the end of it was that a very formal Lufthansa purser came and "invited me" to Business class. I obviously accepted the invitation.

Anyway, enough digressions...

In the morning of Sunday March 20th it was time to head to Oslo International airport, Gardermoen. I arrived pretty early and after finding the check-in counter for Emirates I checked in to my flight. It was generally a pleasant experience. The staff was friendly and I got boarding passes for both my flights, a Meal Voucher to use at Dubai International airport, and a luggage receipt.

After going through security I did some duty-free shopping and then I headed to O'Leary's pub for a bite to eat while I waited for my flight (as far as I know it's the only eatery at OSL with table service, which is very convenient when traveling alone).

When there was about an hour left 'til departure I headed for my gate. I was a little taken aback by the long queue to get through passport control, but fortunately it didn't take very long and I soon found myself at gate F20.

Oslo (OSL) to Dubai (DXB)
Airline: Emirates  Flight: EK 160
Plane type: Boeing 777-300 ER (A6-ENB)
Seat: 47K

The boarding process was pretty efficient.  They started with passengers requiring assistance, then families traveling with small children before they started with Business class passengers.  When that was finally done they started with Economy class.  They boarded us segment by segment and since I had a seat almost all the way at the back of the plan I was one of the first to board.

From row 46 backwards the seat configuration is 2-4-2 instead of 3-4-3 and a buddy of mine had recommended getting a window seat back there. I booked seat 47K not long after I bought the tickets, since Emirates allows you to pre-choose your seat for free.

A blanket, pillow and a set of earphones were waiting in my seat:

Legroom was acceptable:

I was lucky! The lady in seat 47J had been separated from her family. Apparently they hadn't pre-chosen seats and since it was a pretty full flight there were only scattered seats available at check-in.   She was very unhappy about it at made a bit of a fuss. The cabin crew worked some sort of magic and found her a seat next to her daughter and husband. 47J stayed empty which I was very happy about!

There was WiFi on the plane and it worked well.  Not super fast, but enough for me to keep up with social media, check emails and surf the web.  With Emirates you get 10MB for free and for (a whopping) $1 you can buy another 500MB.

The menu for the flight:

The disadvantage of being seated at the rear of the plane is being one of the last to be served.  By the time they made it to my seat they were out of the chicken dish, so I was stuck with the salmon. It was ok. The salmon it self tasted good, but the pasta was a bit dry and I didn't even touch the spinach.  The starter was good and the dessert was delicious.  In total one of the better meals I've had on a plane.

The cabin crew only came around with the drinks trolley once (during dinner service), but they walked around the plane with trays with water and juice several times. I'm sure something stronger could've been arranged upon request, but I didn't feel the need for alcohol and didn't ask.

About an hour or so before landing we were served vanilla ice cream.

In Dubai we parked at a gate at concourse B.  After going through security (where I had to be patted down by security because something triggered the metal detector when I walked through) I headed to concourse A.  I was keen to test the American chain restaurant Shake Shack and since I had 5 hours to kill I figured I had plenty of time to get over there, eat and get back in time for my flight to JNB.

I'll admit I was a bit overwhelmed by the scale of DXB. It's a massive airport and I've never been to an airport of that size.  I was slightly nervous as I stepped into a huge elevator down to the train station (you have to catch a small train to travel between concourse A and B), hoping I wouldn't get myself lost.

Fortunately I found Shake Shack easily and ordered their signature burger, fries and a chocolate milkshake. The burger was rather greasy, but the fries and the shake were both very good.

Straight across from Shake Shack is the Heineken Lounge.  I decided to have a beer or three there before returning to concourse B.  Free WiFi was a good trade-off for expensive beer, since I couldn't get the airport WiFi and my iPhone to cooperate.

About 90 minutes before departure I decided to head back to concourse B.  When I got there I found that the gate for the flight had been switched from B2? to C21.  I found the new gate with time to spare.

Dubai (DXB) to Johannesburg (JNB)
Airline: Emirates 
Flight: EK761Plane type: Boeing 777-300 (A6-EGG)Seat: 49A

I didn't take pics of the seat, legroom etc on this flight. It was the same as on the flight from Oslo to Dubai and I was bone tired. It was in the middle of the night and fatigue overtook me as I was sitting at the gate, waiting to board.

We took off heading north and then did a U-turn to head south.  As we turned we had a great view of central Dubai, including Burj Khalifa (the world's tallest building).

The menu for the flight:

I was asleep before they served the Light Bites. I woke up a couple of hours before landing in Johannesburg, in time for breakfast.  I asked for the Scrambled Egg with Chives, but somehow ended up with the Mushroom omelet.  The consistency of the eggs were surprisingly good, but there was just too much mushrooms.  The chicken sausages were good, the baked beans were decent and the rösti potato tasted good, but was soggy.  The croissant was a bit chewy, but with the strawberry preserve on it tasted pretty good. I kind of wished there had been some yoghurt on the tray.

As we approached JNB we had a great view of the Johannesburg skyline:

I'll be in South Africa for another week and Friday April 1st it's time to head back north. I've got a 23 hour layover in Dubai on my way back, which I'm rather excited about.

One Pot Pasta - a quick, easy and tasty dinner!

One of the things I like to do with my free time is to cook. It wasn't always like that

Growing up I wasn’t very interested in cooking. I thought it was a tedious task I only did when I was forced to do it.  When I moved into my first apartment I was thrown into the deep end. I couldn’t afford to eat out every day, so I had no choice but to start cooking. 

Over the years I’ve become much more confident in the kitchen and I enjoy trying out new recipes, tweaking and adjusting them. I’ve come to realize that the only way to get confident in the kitchen is to get in there and cook. I've had my share of disasters in the kitchen (don't even ask about the dinner party disaster that had me literally crying while calling for a pizza delivery), but instead of letting them discourage me I try to learn from them. 

A while back my sister introduced me to this dish; it's tasty and super easy to make.  Just toss all the ingredients in a pot, bring it to a boil and let it simmer until the pasta is done. 

The original recipe is from the Danish blogger Miss Jeanett.

One Pot Pasta

(Serves 2 persons)


The ingredients:

• 250 grams of spaghetti (8,8 oz / 0,55 lb)

• 7 dl water (3 cups / 1,5 pint)

• 200-300 g small flavorful tomatoes (7-10oz / 0,45-0,65 lb)

• 1 onion

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 100 grams of spinach (3,5 oz / 0,22 lb) I have used kale as a substitute and it was ok, but I prefer spinach

• Some fresh basil

• 1 dl double cream (0,42 cup / 0,2 pint)

• Olive oil

• Lemon oil (I have never used that, I’ve used juice from 1/2 lemon or 1 lime to add some zingy taste)

• Spices (salt, pepper, chili flakes, dried basil, onion powder are suggestions on the blog where I found the recipe)

• Shredded parmesan (sprinkle over each plate when serving)

How to do it:

• Split the tomatoes in halves  

• Slice onion and garlic thinly 

• Rinse the spinach

• Break the spaghetti in half  

Put all the ingredients in a large pot.  It’s important that all the ingredients are in the pot before you turn on the heat so they're heated simultaneously.  When it starts to boil let it simmer for about 9 minutes.  Watch it and stir regularly to make sure it doesn’t stick on the bottom of the pot.  When the pasta is cooked take the pot off the heat and let it set for 3-5 minutes before serving it.  
I have substituted the spaghetti with tagliatelle and it worked well. Tagliatelle takes a little longer to cook than spaghetti and the longer cooking time gave the sauce a more creamy consistency. 


Add salt, pepper and parmesan to taste when you serve it.

Bon apetit!

The Pilanesberg (mis)adventures - part I (2013)

I recently spent three weeks in South Africa. This was my third visit and every time I've been there my friends have taken me to Pilanesberg National Park for a daylong game drive.  The park is located in the North West province of South Africa, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) north of Pretoria.

Every visit there has been made more interesting by some sort of unexpected (mis)adventure. This post is about my first visit to the park.

2013

My first visit to South Africa was in January of 2013. On January 23rd it was time for my first visit to Pilanesberg.  We left the house before sunrise to get to there early.  All of us were pretty sleepy and we skipped coffee, breakfast and all that essential stuff. We just wanted to get on the road and our plan was to stop for coffee and rusks (a South African kind of biscuit) at the gate when we got to Pilanesberg.  

We were all more than ready for coffee when we arrived there and opened the trunk of the car to get everything we needed out.  Only to realize that the picnic basket had been left behind at the house.  In Pretoria. A two hour drive away.  Oops!  Thankfully we had brought all the food and drinks, including the thermoses with much needed coffee, with us.  We just didn't have plates, cups, cutlery, cooking utensils etc. 

Some impromptu souvenir shopping (a set of wooden salad servers with zebra stripes on the handles), two balloon sticks we found in the car and a plastic spoon we found on the ground by the water tap at the picnic site saved the day. We used slices of bread as plates for the scrambled eggs we had for lunch and shared the three mugs on the thermoses between the five adults.  And it was fine. We had a great day.

The cooking utensils: souvenir salad servers, two balloon sticks found in the car and a plastic spoon we found by the water tap at the picnic site (we washed it thoroughly before we used it).

In the days leading up to the trip to Pilanesberg my friends were telling me that the animal we'd see lots of was elephants.  The claimed I'd be sick of them by the end of the day (I can't fathom being sick of ellies).  We didn't see a single elephant that day. Not one. We saw plenty of other animals; zebra, giraffe, white rhino, hippo, impala, blue wildebeest, waterbuck... We even saw a lion. But no elephants. Apparently they were hiding from the scary Norwegian visitor or something like that.

It was a lovely day, despite the lack of picnic basket and elephants. I wowed to come back next year to (fingers crossed) see elephants. (And hopefully eat my lunch from a plastic plate. ;-))

Zebra and Impala by Mankwe dam

Red bishop (the bird) in the grass by Mankwe dam.