Getting to Spain

It’s 4a.m. in the morning on Tuesday. I’m wide awake, Anne’s wide awake, we’ve planned what we’re going to do today, so I might as well get on and start our blog. Jet lag always takes a few days to get over and this time is no different. Just roll with whatever your body tells you and soon enough we’ll be back into normal sleep patterns.

The trip getting here contained no dramas this time. Getting to Auckland didn’t involve any lengthy delays that meant we nearly missed the Singapore flight and we arrived on the same flight as our bags, so a much better start than last year.

Given the dramas of last years trip, we decided it was safer to fly to Auckland the night before the Singapore flight. We stayed in the Centre of Auckland on Friday night and then get out to the Airport on Saturday morning to catch the flight to Singapore. Thanks to Kieran – one of the guys I work with at Telecom - for dropping us back out to the airport.

Left for Singapore at 12:25pm, got to Singapore 10 hours later at 7:30pm (local time – nothing wrong with my maths). Left at 11:45pm (nope, 12:45a.m. – 1 hour late for having to unload a passengers bag who didn’t show up - turkey). Caught up the time to arrive in Milan at 7:00am after 12 hours of flying. An hour on the ground to unload 70% of the people on the plane. It was a good stopover, because we weren’t allowed off the plane, but we could wander around it, so up to Business Class to check out how the rich people travel. “Mmmmmmm, this is nice”, “we should do this”, “it’s only money, why don’t we upgrade for the trip back”, “I’ll email Jodi”. The stinj meister (Stinj meister = tight fisted accountant type – likes to hold onto their money) in us had taken over by the end of the day, and we’ll tough it out at the back of the plane for the foreseeable future.

We arrived at Barcelona at 9:00am and with a minimal of fuss, were at the hotel by 10:00am and the room was ready by 10:15am. Time for a shower and new clothes – 36 hours in a plane is a long time.