Due to the joy of a natural late checkout time (12:00 - no idea how that happened but happy it did) we slept in before getting ready and sorting out the pack up to get home. Complicated by a long stopover with no access to the luggage.
Having some time to kill before the trek actually began, we left the baggage in the basement and went out on the streets for a hefty lunch.
Ended up in a doorway of an upper class establishment for a fabulous meal of benny eggs with a few extras thrown in for good measure. They did not seem to be in any hurry so we effectively filled in the time there. No rushing around, no grabbing snaps of olde worlde remnants. All been done before. Just watched the procession of people wandering by or hanging around, one with an old style tobacco pipe. Had not seen that for a long time. Obviously oblivious to the impact on others in the eatery. Back to the hotel to collect the bags, booked Uber to the airport and got ripped of a bit as they charged another 10 euros on the quoted costs. Not sure entirely how that happened. All of a sudden not so keen on the idea of taxis being booked via Uber.
Some sort of unexplained delay saw the big bird eventually lumber up into the smoky skies as bush fires were burning somewhere. We shot off into the night leaving the sunset to linger over the Acropolis as we plunged into the darkness, taking a slight detour around Gaza which seemed to make a lot of sense.
A few hours later we were decending past the evil tower of Dubai, now a glittering spike of lights amongst a sea of coloured sparkles. Some bright spark in the airport operations decided our bird should dock at the end of the terminal. That's ok they said as the passengers can be ferried to their next door. This means of course those up the front. Those of us down the back had a 45 minute walk to get out the departure gates. Yes really. The terminal is that big. At midnight, a tide of humanity streaming along the never ending raised gantries, this was exhausting, especially with carrying extra carry-on, needless to say there was a fair amount of carry on the more and more we realised we realised how much longer we needed to carry on. Especially when the advice given about visas was incorrect. Midnight and its 36 degrees.
The stop over hotel is huge, very old (to Dubai standards) and thanks to the time taken to get into it and the poor timing advice to leave in it the morning we only got 4 hours downtime when it could've been at least 6. So another hang around an airport terminal. Plus new rules that involve a bag check looking for water bottles. The world is going crazy.
The seat selection for this last hop was stressful a few months ago and it turns out all is good, great in fact as the seat next to us is vacant. Feels more comfortable than the premium eco seat
on the way out. Behind us the bulkhead gives us space to store stuff as well as under our seat and the one in front. Still have a stewardess cupboard above though of which they don't care how loudly they bang it. Pity the people close to the screaming babies, which screamed all trip. 13 hours of screaming. Wierd parenting going on there.
Arriving in Melbourne and it's a crisp zero degrees morning. Cloudless sky as the sun starts to illuminate the horizon below the old moon and venus glowing in partnership just above it.
Offspring No.2 kindly picked us up, we trundled down to Abbotsford to have fabulous brecky in a Japanese influenced cafe' as the joy riding balloonists drifted by over the river parks nearby indicating that nothing has changed here apart from an eggsistanal crisis (did I mention how cold it is here?)
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