Day 1 - ENG

Cookie says...
When Julie said that she wanted me to organise our honeymoon and it was to be a surprise for her, I was confident that I could come up with something that she'd like. However, once I had started booking stuff, I was unsure that she would be thrilled with a few things. Firstly, she had wanted to go somewhere she hadn't been before and secondly, I didn't know how she'd like the initial commuting stage.

So, for me today started with some trepidation as we had three back to back flights heading to somewhere she'd already spent 11 months. Both of us had flown with Emirates previously and apart from feeling as though we were in the fridge compartment, this experience was another good one. We ended up sitting in the last row on the plane (courtesy of some bargain basement Flight Centre prices) and had a couple next to us from Burpengary (named after my uncle Gary who used to burp alot) who were also off to our destination.

Over the last few years, Julie has discovered that my superpower is that I will meet people I know wherever I go and this flight was no different. When we were boarding in Singapore after a 30 min stopover, I noticed that we had queued behind Michael Stepenyazi and Sophie. I knew him from soccer and it turned out that they had been married on the same day as us and were travelling to Italy for their honeymoon.

We made it to Dubai and changed planes. This time we noticed that our boarding passes had us in row 79 which if it was on another Boeing 777, we'd have been perched up on the tail wings. It turns out we were at the back of the second last section on an A380. These planes are truely huge and I ended up sitting next to a guy who worked for Emirates who had apparently put alot of money down on another 24 of this birds. He was heading to London to hang out with his mates at the Glastonbury Festival.

Once we landed we had a bit of a delay due to the airbridges not functioning. Border control was easy and the old habits of getting to the tube kicked in. We checked into a place in Kensington and had dinner there too. Being summer it was incredibly bright at 8.30 in the evening but we were so tired it didn't matter so headed straight to bed.


Julie says...
This is the first time I have ever caught a plane at 2:30am, and I must admit when Cookie told me the time we were flying out, I doubted his planning. However, my caution was unneccessary, as leaving at ridiculous-o'clock in the morning worked well for the 3 flights we had to take. On both the Singapore and Dubai legs of the flight, Emirates decided that all passengers should experience an Artic winter, and so even with multiple layers of clothing, I stole Cookie's blanket (having a husband now certainly comes in handy). Otherwise, the trip over was quite uneventful and I was happy to see merry old England again.

Day 39 - IT

The flight left on time from Rome and was heading to Dubai. I had an eight hour stop over there which was dead boring. I walked the full length of the airport (30 mins in one direction) and even resorted to slowly walking forwards on the travelators that were moving in the opposite direction. I'm sure I would have had a few passengers and security guards wondering what I was doing. I managed to get a few hours sleep in one of the 'quite' lounges.

Next stop was Singapore again where we had a two hour stopover. I took this as an opportunity to ring mum for her birthday, the same day as my housemate, Kelly. I jumped online for a while and then boarded for home.

I arrived and tried out our Airtrain for the first time. It worked out okay and before long, I was back home.

Day 1 - ENG

This is a perfect example of how you loose a day to travel... well, commuting really and as a passenger, there's nothing I can do to make it any better or go quicker.

Sarah left this morning via Japan and I left early evening going a different route. I'm on an Emirates flight via two quick stops in Singapore and Dubai.

Growing up in Brisbane meant the biggest gun I had seen on a police officer was their sidearm. At Singapore airport police or army walk around with MP5's, something I had only seen in computer games. It was a fairly quiet and orderly experience.

Dubai was quite the opposite. The airport is huge and surrounded by construction. Gotta love oil! We landed, herded into a bus and then transported about 10 mins to a terminal. Here five flight loads of passengers converged in the one space. Many different languages could be heard and while initially I thought a 90 minute stopover would be enough time to make my connecting flight, I realised it might not. We were packed in like tinned sardines and waiting to see or hear when our flights were available.

Someone held up Heathrow and I worked my way through the crowd. From then I followed a procession through a few check points until I finally made it to the plane. I think I'd walked for about half an hour and the plane doors were closed a few minutes after we made it. I hope my luggage did!

London, here I come.