Chris and Emily

The day of take off has finally arrived! Chris and I have been waiting for this day, for what seems like forever! Thanks to the change in time with day light savings, we awoke bright and early and ready to hit the road (or skies as it is in this case) We had an entire day to fill with waiting, last minute checks and the indecision of what to wear.. 3pm seemed to take a very very long time to roll around. FINALLY though it did, and thanks to Ev and Jan made our way to the airport where we were greeted with a large entourage of family and friends.

To anyone on the outside it would appear as if we were leaving for far longer than the 6 months we have planned! It was truly lovely to see how many people turned up to bid us farewell, it reconfirmed to the both of us how lucky we are to have such wonderful friends and family. We were also presented with a large farewell card full of advice and goodbye messages from other mates who were unable to make the airport (or the night out last night..) that too was very touching. It's always difficult for me to leave those I love, no matter how long my journey away is for, and this time was no exception. I promised myself I wouldn't get teary, but it would seem I'm unable to keep promises with myself! I shed quite a few tears whilst saying goodbye and then even more while boarding and taking off. However, I have discovered that becoming puffy eyed, tear stained and snotty has it's advantages! The air stewardess asked "have you been crying?" I replied "yes, are you going to kick me off?" She contemplated for a short time before saying no and then disappeared. She then returned with many many a tissue (I must have looked far worse than I thought...) and a bottle of water, and later, thanks to my display of woosieness, another round of sandwiches.. a girl can never have too many sandwiches you know so I accepted gratefully...

The flight itself wasn't too bad, but then I love a good dose of turbulance, helps to keep the flight interesting. It didn't seem to excite those behind us much however. The sudden dips and violent shakes seemed to draw many gasps and "oh god!" and even one or two expletives... There was a lovely little boy behind us though, who thankfully wasn't a screamer. Instead he laughed quite loudly and yelled "yay, whee!" and at one stage "look grandpa, we're dancing on the plane!" which made a few nervous flyers smile at the very least. Babes can be quite sweet in their innocence.

Qantas club melbourne

Anyhow. We received a lovely, wonderful suprise whilst checking in. Chris' brother who had dealt with our bookings etc had suprisingly upgraded us to buisness class for the longer legs of the journey! Hoorah! Thank you very much! :) We also have received passes to the the buisness lounge to wait out the 3 hour stop over, lovely thank you very much! We have proceeded to help ourselves to the free champers, beer,phone line and yummy food and now, sitting admist the more 'upper class' I'd guess you say, have kicked off my smelly hiking boots and am blogging away furiously whilst those around me are looking all smart and civilised reading large papers that expand your entire arms length. I am slightly concerned though of the smell wafting from my boots.. whilst it was a practical idea to wear them on the trip to save weight and room, they weren't the smartest idea in the way of comfort.. non the less! I'm planning on begging Chris to take his boots off too in a minute and so that way no one will suspect that the boot smell belongs to me.. hee hee hee... I am a genius! Besides, everyone knows that girls don't smell right?

The memorable toast!

To toast the adventure unfolding before us we took two glasses of champers. This was all going lovely, Chris gave a lovely little speech, we 'clinked' with the usual eye contact, took a sip and then.. SMASH! Chris had managed, much to my amusement, take the entire bottom of his champers glass off whilst attempting to put it down on the side table. Very amusing for me, not so for him. I think, with the combination of smelly feet and breaking their goods, the lounge and those around us, may very well be glad to see us leave.

So now we sit and wait for a further 2 hours 10 minutes until our flight to Hong Kong is called. Am not sure what we will do to fill in this time but I do see a rather impressive stack of glasses to my right.... :)

To be continued......

Oh yes, we have also learnt that you can not bring small jars of vegemite through customs (thanks for the thought though Jess) & that you can not offer your jar of said vegemite to the custom men. Customs also do not allow used, slimy almost empty tubes of toothpaste through. This is not for its contents, but rather for it's sizing (not allowed anything over 100g) though, vegemite is also a gel and for that reason a no no. Victory though with the tin of milo, it was allowed, much to my great delight and relief, through! Thanks God!

Okay, now to be continued....

written by

Chris and Emily on April 5, 2009 from Melbourne, Australia

from the travel blog: Europe 2009

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