Not 8 hours sleep, but plenty of opportunity to power nap on the plane. We set a wake up call for 7am and like the professional travelers we are we – had our morning freshen and final pack routine executed like clockwork. Fine expresso from resident barista Vern, check out and a quick taxi ride of 20 minutes to the airport ($22) for a uninhibited check in – no one in que ahead of us. Perfect. We headed through departures to find some breakfast and settled on Subway as the ‘local’ food did not look great quality and was over priced for example a vegetarian Indian platter of dips and naan $9.50 vs. a sub for $4.50. I may not have minded as I do enjoy Indian breakfast, but it was small portion and watery looking for the money and I know it was not expensive to produce. Singapore airport might have once won awards, but she is pretty tired to almost shabby looking these days.
We boarded our Emirates flight – B777-300 plane for departure at 10:30. The movie selection is awesome but I have used the hours to work on photo sorting and blog! This flight is a bit faster just like our others so this leg is 6:50hrs. As we took off looking down it amazes me to see the numerous ships lying like beetles on a flat blue sea, all waiting for cargo pick up or drop off, or perhaps refueling. Our first meal was a lunch and Vern and I often swap half way so we can try the two options. He had chicken cacciatore, mash and beans and mine was lamb curry and turmeric rice. I popped the lid to see one x 1cm cube of lamb in a small 100ml gluggy sauce and 2/3 dish just rice. Verns was far from gourmet but at least he had a regular and fair portion of the foods. I buzzed the hostess and complained and asked if I could have a chicken. No problem. I have never had such poor food on a plane, and definitely would not expect this from Emirates. We had a smoked chicken and potato salad entree, a dry roll, and chocolate mousse. Do hope the other Emirate flights are better as far as service. We also do not get a second meal like Qantas … Very interesting. The staff are also not as attentive or friendly as Qantas or Air NZ – but they do have the advantage of a nice, big and modern fleet.
Most of the first leg was taken up typing. Funnily enough despite a good sleep as the plane was taking off I actually fell asleep for a second just after take off. Strangely, the first 15 minutes of the flight are when I am the most tired. The view out of the window was mostly water, but we passed over the middle and top of India for a bit. It looked very dry, dull colored earth and dusty. Not much habitation. As we got closer to Dubai you could see similar land but more mountainous and then it was exciting to set first glimpses of the golden desert. Coming into Dubai they announced the weather was a pleasant 40 degrees … really? We had an hour before our connection and had to find our plane straight away and pass through custom check. The air con was not that effective and there was barely time to go to the toilet. There was a strange atmosphere at the airport – you can feel you are in a country with very different rules. Vern and I were holding hands (ah yes very sweet) and then I realized this is not acceptable – and quickly stopped. No one said anything but you can just feel it.
The next plane was a big A380, which gave us plenty of room. Service again was ok, but you got the feeling they wanted you fed and done, and then they go and sit out the back. It took a over an hour before we got even a welcome drink of water, never mind our one meal for the 6 hour flight. The meal was better than the first Emirates meal, and quite adequate, albeit not as nice as Pacific made meals. Views out the window this time were quite interesting, firstly passing over Iran, then Turkey, Syria to name a few. Very mountainous, snow on tops, and interesting lakes. Kept hoping we would not be shot down…
It was exciting coming into Amsterdam, seeing all the flat land with fences made of networks of water filled canals. Customs entry was efficient and friendly and it wasn’t long before we were in the airport main area with a feeling of familiarity taking us back to 2013. This was our first point of entry to Europe back then, and the beginning of many happy memories. We got some euros and made our way to the train end to find out about our connection to Rotterdam. We used the vending machine and were delighted to find an express train that would take 1/2 the time to get there than we expected. Even better one was departing in 6 minutes.
It was around 9pm but still very light for the trip to Rotterdam. The scenery was delightfully Dutch, green, flat, canals in abundance, tidy houses with Dutch roofs, the odd windmill, fat Belgium blue cattle in paddocks, some miniature horses, and an abudance of water fowl happily going about their business. The visual pleasure and excitement quickly expelled any tiredness we were feeling as the train made its smooth gentle rocking 20 minute sprint to Rotterdam.
When we got to Rotterdam we didn’t know exactly where the hotel was, except easy walking distance to the train station. We had the address – just no google map. We asked a lady and got pointed to the right end of the station to exit, and there we would find the Main Street which the hotel was on – Weena. A quick and accurate guess to go left, and it was an easy 5 minute walk and we were there. Nothing like a lengthy indulgent shower after a long flight and then a luxurious stretch out horizontal to remove those creeks and crinkles of the limited plane room. Another BIG day, looking at my watch we had been up 22 hours. We felt a little tired, but no jet leg as such. This leg though we both got a bit puffy in the legs despite wearing our socks and taking our pills. Vern was not too bad, but I reckon I have taken cankles to a new level, complete with sausage legs like the Michelan tyre lady. Ah the life of travel.
Travels with Valrock 