Keen's European Vacation - Day 1

Day 1: 6 August 2015 Belmont North – Sydney – Dubai – Paris

Buy a Bentley he said....it's duty free he said!......

We packed egg and lettuce sandwiches (we both love em!) we bought snacks, including the verboten lollies and muesli bars and we charged off to Cardiff station. Bree was taking photos and getting us revved up like a dervish! We were Empowered! We could do this! Let us at Europe…..we are going to suck the life out of it!!!! 

The chatty guard at the station clued us in about how to change trains & platforms and negotiate Central station like professionals, and the first leg went like clockwork! 2.5 hours later we were all checked in (travel tip number one, check in online as soon as you can). We ended up with the last 2 seats together in the middle of the row! Bugger! I love the aisle seat and Pete the window, but we learned an early lesson! 

We had organised our Euro’s through the bank on a Cash Passport and we bought some cash to carry onto the flight, we had some Aussie dollars and looked for a coffee and a table to eat our egg and lettuce samiches! We cleared customs and went through security, then into DUTY FREE! Bugger, it was being renovated and was pretty disappointing; we didn’t buy anything cause we were on holidays for the experiences not to shop! Weren’t we? 

We boarded our flight at 4:00pm in Sydney and we were set! We really didn’t appreciate the change of time zones and the sheer distance until we got on the plane and realised the first leg was a 14-hour long haul to Dubai! The staff was great and we were fed the cutest little airline food at all times of the afternoon, evening and they even woke us in the middle of the night to feed us again! We had a wine and beer with dinner, which was really nice and tasty, who would have thought one of those little foil trays could fill you up? But we had been stagnant sitting in our cosy seats squeezed between a guy from Melbourne going to London to watch his Manchester United team play and Sam from Rockdale who was going back to the old country for a family reunion in Milan. They were very gracious gents and did not mind us squeezing past them to go to the loo and to stretch our legs…..GET THE AISLE SEAT PEEPS! We watched movies, read and wrote and chatted to pass the time. 

I take my eye off her for 5 mins....she finds a sheik!

We arrived in Dubai around midnight for a 4-hour stopover. OMG! The airport was massive and amazing, duty free on steroids! People from every country on Earth walking around and doing what people do… All the gorgeous white, black & cappuccino skins mixed together, robed men and women and people dressed up and down! I listened to languages I had no hope of understanding or identifying and they were all hurrying their way through the journey. Note: The smoking room was disgusting, you could smell it from 100mtrs away, no ventilation and crammed full of people puffing away, why do they do it to themselves? 

 We bought a bottle of scotch and bourbon to take with us – about $20US and found a seat to watch the sea of humanity and relax, still no sleep – we were wired!

Now, onto the massive Emirates airbus 380 for our final leg to Paris a mere 7 hours away!