Day 1 - Saturday 20th July

Today has been a very long day. The group convened at the Emirates check-in at Gatwick's North Terminal at 7am with most of us having woken up at 5am or earlier. However, the sight of Eddie Redmayne checking into British Airways First Class desk made the morning considerably brighter, for the girls at least! 

We caught our flight to Dubai at 10.00 GMT and, having caught up on some much needed sleep, we arrived at 19.50 local time. The air hostess informed us that it was 40 degrees centigrade but unfortunately we could not venture outside to experience the heat. This didn't bother us too much as Dubai airport provided plenty of entertainment during our short wait for the next flight. After we'd been through security, Ewan dropped a folder with his passport, money and tickets in it. Miss Fitzgibbon slyly picked it up and hid it behind her sunhat in order to, quote, 'teach him a lesson'! It was, of course, duly returned to him, but only after a suitable amount of panicking on his part. We then proceeded to our home away from home, Starbucks, to stock up on some familiar food for the final time. While I was sipping on my Strawberry and Cream Frappacino, we heard the Muslim call to prayer which, although it seemed very out of place at first, was a reminder of the mixture of Eastern and Western traditions that defines Dubai as a city. Dubai airport is unbelievably luxurious. Everything seemed brand new, which of course it may be, but I can't imagine ever being able to see our reflection in the floors at Gatwick... There was a huge glass lift to take us down to our boarding gate which was next to an artificial waterfall spanning across one side of the building with coloured lights in a pool at the bottom. We later passed a lake surrounded by palm trees in the middle of duty free.

It was then time to catch our second flight of the day to Thiruvananthapuram (I don't think any of us have mastered the pronunciation yet, let alone knowing how to spell it) at 21.45 Dubai time. The seats on our Emirates flights had television sets and we could make phone calls to other passengers by dialling their seat number with the remotes. This certainly came in handy when we tried to fill in our 'Arrival Card for Passengers' as Mr Hunt was able to talk very confused pupils through the form while remaining in his seat! We were served our first curry of the trip which was quickly devoured and Sabby and Katie described the dessert as 'English rice pudding with an Indian twist'. Four hours later we descended on India at 03. 20 local time. 

By Kimberley