On The Way to Austria
Our preparations for leaving were all going smoothly until they weren’t.
Ben and I woke up at 5am all energetic and in high spirits for the day. Our main objective was to take all the bags back home and get the car washed as well as pack up our villa, simple right, except I don’t know how we managed to accumulate 15 bags of rubbish in the 6 weeks we stayed there (we filled the Cypress Lakes skip bin).
Ben went off and ferried bags and belongings back to our house while I tidied up and did breakfast and got the kids all organised. Once he got back we all jumped in the car and off we went.
We had about an hour to kill once we got home and true to form the kids jumped on the mower and did a few laps, and then rode around on their bikes and went on the swing. It was so wonderful just to watch them play and enjoy being back at our place. Ben and I covered the car and did last minute prep and the time flew as it wasn’t long before our shuttle bus arrived to pick me us up. We booked through Heavenly Tours and our driver Christine was lovely.
We got to see the harbour bridge and opera house on the way to the airport and once inside the terminal we found Emirates terminal D and we were now 1.5 hours out before boarding.
Everyone seemed to be lining up already so true to the norm of following the pack we joined the imaginary queue, as there were just masses of people in lots of lines so we made our own line too. They actually opened the check in early and our imaginary line was actually at the beginning of where the entrance was so we were at the very front and were the first to the teller which I was very happily surprised but geez what absolute carnage that folllowed.
With big smiles and our 12 bags in towe we were ushered to the check in. I handed over the 3 Austrian passport and my Aussie passport but was told we all needed to depart on Aussie passports so I then rummaged around and grabbed them out. One by one we weighed our bags and we were 10kg over the limit. - 10! We must have weighed and re weighed our bags at home checking we were on the limit and we only weighed 4kg over by our measuring.
The lady at the checkin was so lovely and told us Jessys tote bag was not considered carry on hand luggage (it was a hand bag even though it alone weighed 7kg) so if we wanted to buy another bag for our 4th carry on of 7kg we could open our large bags and redistribute to the new carry on. With our tail between our legs but hopeful off we went.
Picture this, Jessy, Daniel and myself with a huge collection of bags off to the side, with about 300 people looking on putting the combination into padlocks and undoing bags, trying to decide which items to take out in haste while Ben is off on a treasure hunt to find the elusive bag. We were laughing in such hysteria and just grabbing out what we deemed heavy, ie shoes, jackets, pants and hats. Ben was super quick and within 5 minutes he returns with a neon yellow bag very befitting of the spotlight we were under to perform our task.
The lovely teller lady told us once we were ready we could skip the queue and just go back to her which we did and when we re weighed we were exactly 120kg, talk about kismet!
Laughs and smiles all round we then wandered off to the departure lounge. I needed to decompress and just sit for 10 mins to take in what just happened and let my body calm down and then we headed to our gate while perusing the duty free shops.
The wait went so quick in the boarding lounge and we were also one of the first called to board as we were in section D. Seats located and I am currently one movie down - Bridget Jones The Boy which I thoroughly enjoyed.
The service on the other planeis excellent. It’s 1am as I write this and I have had a little 2 hour nap but it’s impossible to sleep for several reasons. They keep feeding us and offering us drinks and I don’t want to miss a snack as the food is actually good.
I had lemon ginger chicken with rice for dinner followed with cheese and biccies, a couscous bean salad and cheesecake for desert and a chocolate.
The kids are sitting together as it’s normally one of the kids with one of us but they were happy to sit together and they have been making tik toks and having fun which is so wonderful.
.This flight has 500 passengers on it and is a double decker plane. There is a plethora of movies to choose from as well as tv and music. Ben and I have just been taking it all in and trying to let everything go. We’re excited but we still carry that nervous energy of the unknown. It is starting to subside which is nice but I really don’t foresee myself sleeping. How oh how are you meant to sleep in a seat. You can’t turn, yes we have a pillow but did I say your trying to sleep sitting up…impossible…well for me anyway. I will just sit here and people watch as well as binge on entertainment until the next round of feeding time!