And we are back! No prize for guessing that we are heading Greece and the sun away from a cold, windy Sydney. Obviously we are maintaining the song references in the title of each post.
I have begun this post from home and as I sip the last of a glass of red wine the sun is setting over a grey skyline. Shortly we will be heading downstairs to catch a taxi to the airport. We are flying a Qantas code-share which is code for Emirates. Sydney to Dubai with a five hour stop-over and then on to Athens. While I'm not keen on long stop-overs Dubai airport is fascinating and I'm sure we can waste the time there quite easily.
Why Greece you ask? No Paris? Sadly there is no time for Paris on this trip. I have changed employment since our last overseas sojourn and am taking leave without pay, so a quick two weeks will be a welcome break. A longer trip next year - and yes, France is on the agenda, but then France is always on my agenda.
Neither of us has been to Greece so when our friends Mel and Dean announced that they were getting married in Greece we thought, why not. We have three days in Athens which everyone has said will be more than enough - we'll see. Then down to Koroni for the wedding. We'll be there three days as well. After that it is back to Athens to fly to Santorini where we are staying for five days until it's time to come back to wintery Sydney.
Code-share
We've done the code-share thing before without any drama but I'm not so comfortable this time. As usual once the booking was confirmed I pre-selected our seats. Even after 36 years together we still like to sit with one another. Curious, I know. When I checked the seats on Friday they had been changed, seriously changed, to the extent that for some flights we weren't even in the same section of the plane. Maybe Jayne doesn't want to sit with me. No. Not possible. So, I went back in and adjusted the seats. Well, I tried to, but on one leg it would not allow me to register a seat preference at all.
In frustration I decided I needed to speak to a person. Radical I know. I phone Qantas. They couldn't allocate me seat either. Code-share. Ahh, I pondered. Then the lovely Qantas lady phoned me back with the corresponding Emirates booking number and I logged on there and rectified the seating debacle. The disappointing thing is that we have lost some of the good seats we had initially.
And to the Qantas Business Lounge where we now reside drinking red wine and eating cheese. The seat allocation was fine. We have been given a card to access the Emirates Business Lounge in Dubai and an express pass through immigration. Nice. All I really need now is an upgrade and life would be, well, even more perfect.
Dubai
We landed about 5:15am and it was already 35°C. This place is massive but after a long flight crammed into a shoe box we walked for a little while and headed straight for the lounge.
Neither Jayne nor I managed much sleep on the flight. It was the most cramped and uncomfortable I've felt for a while. On the plus side I watched The Revenant, The Dressmaker, Calvary, Carol and Thor - Dark World. It was a Hemsworth fest with Liam staring in The Dressmaker and Chris in Thor. I was most glad to be able to stand and walk after such a long flight. Thankfully the next leg to Athens is only 5 hours or so.
Once again the movie censors have provided me with vast amusement. Anything close to human nudity is pixellated but massive gut-wrenching, visceral violence against humanity is OK. Do we have our standards wrong here dear reader?
The Emirates Lounge, like the airport, is totally understated. Joking. It goes forever and each lounge area has its own boarding gate so we don't have to mix the common people until we are on the plane in cattle class once again.
And that should do it for this post. I'll be back tomorrow once we are established in Athens with stories of the flight and our first impressions of the birthplace of a civilisation that has influenced so much of the world.
And to the Qantas Business Lounge where we now reside drinking red wine and eating cheese. The seat allocation was fine. We have been given a card to access the Emirates Business Lounge in Dubai and an express pass through immigration. Nice. All I really need now is an upgrade and life would be, well, even more perfect.
Dubai
We landed about 5:15am and it was already 35°C. This place is massive but after a long flight crammed into a shoe box we walked for a little while and headed straight for the lounge.
Neither Jayne nor I managed much sleep on the flight. It was the most cramped and uncomfortable I've felt for a while. On the plus side I watched The Revenant, The Dressmaker, Calvary, Carol and Thor - Dark World. It was a Hemsworth fest with Liam staring in The Dressmaker and Chris in Thor. I was most glad to be able to stand and walk after such a long flight. Thankfully the next leg to Athens is only 5 hours or so.
Once again the movie censors have provided me with vast amusement. Anything close to human nudity is pixellated but massive gut-wrenching, visceral violence against humanity is OK. Do we have our standards wrong here dear reader?
The Emirates Lounge, like the airport, is totally understated. Joking. It goes forever and each lounge area has its own boarding gate so we don't have to mix the common people until we are on the plane in cattle class once again.
And that should do it for this post. I'll be back tomorrow once we are established in Athens with stories of the flight and our first impressions of the birthplace of a civilisation that has influenced so much of the world.
