We bounced out of bed (one more quickly than the other) when the alarm went at 6am on Saturday morning. It was only a 3-minute walk across the road to the bus station, with the bus turning up just a few minutes late, at 7:05am. It had come all the way from Venice via Turin and Grenoble. The bus company was Flixbus, a German company, which has an extensive network of bus routes. There were two bus drivers on board, who swapped driving duties on a regular basis. One driver came complete with his girlfriend, always ready for a cuddle in the front seat.
The trip into Barcelona went very quickly, even with the scheduled 5 minute (25min actually) for a toilet (i.e. smoko) break. We knew the ropes once we arrived at the bus station, because we'd done this bus/metro to the airport connection before. 'Our' cafe was just across the road from the bus station so we sat ourselves down for a morning hot chocolate and pastry for breakfast. It was pretty straight-forward to then navigate the metro lines to get to the airport. We arrived with plenty of time to spare before our flight mid-afternoon.
Our bags were bulging, and weighing a combined 52.5kg on the baggage scales confirmed it. Ugh! Taking too many things back to NZ. We don't want to travel with this much luggage again. It was good to see the bags disappear on the conveyor belt, and we only had the 7kg backpacks, plus laptop and my large full satchel handbag to contend with.
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| Looks good, but it was only the tags, not the pointy end of the plane for us |
We were flying Qatar Airlines, and their reputation as a great airline is well deserved. Our first flight to Doha was on a A350-900 plane. The legroom was stupendous. The best we've ever had. It was a shame the flight was only 6hrs long. Three movies later and we were landing in Doha. We only had one hour to fill in before we had to head to the departure lounge, ready for the next flight, so we spent it stretching our legs. Doha airport is much nicer than Dubai.
Our flight from Doha left at 2:30am. For the first time we had booked seats in the central section, so we could easily get up and down and stretch our legs during the long-haul. 'Dinner' was served at 4am, after which we both slept fairly well for 4-5 hours. The flight went really well, it was just a matter of eating, drinking plenty of water, watching movies and snoozing. I got sick of movies in the end and watched quite a few Ted Talks. They are so interesting.
What a pleasure getting through Auckland Airport. Granted it was before 5am, but irrespective of there being few passengers to be processed, it was just so easy zipping through the electronic passport control, then chatting to the officer about the food (basically cheeses) we were bringing in. Even the bags were offloaded incredibly efficiently, hence we were 'processed' within half an hour. It was still only 5:30am. We looked at the price of Skybus ($20 each) and for only $2 more opted for an Uber, which promptly picked us up and deposited us outside my sister's place just after 6am. Luckily she was already up, though in the shower.
It is very nice to be back in NZ. I am loving hearing the Kiwi accents all around us. After a quick cup of tea we hit the sack, and caught up on a little sleep while Rhonda went to a big quilting exhibition in the city. John was feeling rather unwell, with possibly another coffee headache, even though he'd been so careful during the previous few days to have just decaf coffees. It's still a bit frustrating for him, particularly after having no coffee headaches for about 4 months in Europe.
The rest of Saturday was pretty cruisy, catching up with my sister, and later watching the All Blacks play Japan on TV. It's good to be back!
A few observations that have immediately caught our attention since arriving back in NZ:
- people are tall and strongly built compared with southern Europe, particularly the women
- people are very friendly
- prices are very high, at least for the necessities we have bought so far, i.e. wine and coffee
Saturday was a full days' work in my sister's garden, planting trees, weeding and more. Sunday will be more of the same. John is also doing a number of small jobs around the house.
So, that's it. We fly out to Melbourne tomorrow. Bella is still pregnant, i.e. little man is now seemingly determined to not enter the world prematurely. It's looking as though we're likely to arrive in time for the birth. Woohoo!
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