Day 1. Leaving home!

The 7th November is finally here!!! Our trip has begun!! I forgot how much fun it is packing for a trip that includes a cruise, particularly when they ask you to dress up for dinner. Mmmm.... Fortunately, or unfortunately some may say, we are not going on a warm weather holiday, so we can leave out the beach gear. That all said, it is going to be a struggle to keep our cases under 20 kilos. We are travelling on several different airlines on this trip, and they all have different policies, so had to factor that in - Argggghhhhhh!!!!

Can you pack me in your suitcase too?

What is all this packing about?

This morning we arranged everything for Cosby and Macy. They are just as excited as we are about the trip as they are getting to spend lots of time with their grandparents (both sets) and will have back gardens to run around in and chase lizards and eat snails (as we may do later in our trip- mmmmm). 

Staying with grandparents.

Even Stephen's Kandii tried to come.

Cory wanted to make sure his ears were as clear as possible so he decided to do a candle-ing treatment on his ear canals. Not sure it did anything but he did look quite funny and as though he was a birthday cake with a candle sticking out of his head!

Cory as a birthday cake?

Once the kids were sorted out, we headed out to Tullamarine. We were fortunate enough to have our lovely friend Mark offer to pick us up and take us out to the airport. Thanks Mark - made everything a lot less stressful and was good to see you and hear about all your exciting things going on. Cory loved showing off his recently bloomed hydrangeas too. 

It really does feel different when you are going on holidays compared to going to work!!!! Excitement, trepidation, what if we don't get on the flight? Will we get seats together? All those things cross your mind, though we definitely worry about them far less now than when we were younger. 

At the airport, there was a long line for check in which raised some eye brows, and we were soon to find out that the reason was because another flight to Singapore had been cancelled. All of its passengers were being placed onto our flight... Grrrr. This was going to change things a bit, though the check in staff assured us that Qantas customers - including us - would be loaded on before the other airline’s delayed passengers.... ( We had fingers crossed as this had the potential to totally derail our whole plans - There was a bit of nail biting going on)...

Everything ended up getting nicely delayed because of the extra passengers, but we kept our seats and got onto a very nice looking A380. It was a fantastic flight with beautiful food and wine!

 

We had some very exciting news from a few fronts letting us know that Obama had won the USA elections. This was a massive relief for all... Could not imagine arriving in the USA to a suppressive leadership later in our trip... Congrats to all Americans for choosing the right guys!!!!

And we are off!!! Goodbye Melbourne!!!

We arrived at Singapore Changhi a little late and said a goodbye to our A380, which was going onto London and made a change to the trusty 747-400 bound for Frankfurt!!!! The 747 still looks so beautiful!!! Next stop: Europe!!!! Will report back to you then!!!

A view of Singapore city twinkling at night, taken on the 4th November from Swissotel, the Stamford, 46th floor.