We departed Australia on 19 April at about 12.50pm with our first stop, Singapore. It was a 9 hour flight which we passed the time watching movies we didn’t want to watch together. I watched Spy and Trainwreck while Chris caught up with me on James Bond by watching Skyfall. He also watched 10 minutes of Spectre before realising that I hadn’t seen it, so we shant talk about that.
The 6 hour layover felt a lot longer than our 9 hour flight. After connecting to wifi to message some friends and our family to let them know we were safe at Changi, we wandered aimlessly. Like the aimless vagabonds we felt like, we then took it in turns to nap on the carpeted floor near our gate. Classy.
We got on our KLM flight to Amsterdam at midnight local time (4am Brisbane time) on 20 April.
Fortunately Chris and myself remembered to take some Phenergan, which the pharmacist suggested would assist with clearing nasal passages caused by allergy as well as provide a strong sleeping agent. Whoa, did it work. I slept for a solid 4.5 hours before being interrupted for food. Chris also slept pretty soundly notwithstanding the fact it was a pretty crowded 12 hour flight.
We arrived in Amsterdam at 7.30am local time. Only one more stop to go! We were at Schiphol airport for 4 hours and it went pretty quickly as we enjoyed a (real) coffee.
We boarded our last plane at 11.35am local time which took a grateful 3 hours to reach Athens. When we got off the plane the briskness of the Dutch air dissipated and in its stead was the dry, dusty heat of Athens. It felt like Rockhampton on a Spring day – just when it’s starting to get hot but not yet humid.
Our Taxi driver didn’t speak much English but got us to our hotel in one piece. This was surprising to me as we drove a pretty consistent 140km in an 80 zone all while the driver didn’t wear a seatbelt. I guess speedlimits and seatbelts are optional here?
Got to the hotel around 6.30pm local time. Greece is 7 hours behind the East Coast of Australia so adjusting to the timezone is quite difficult.
Instead of going to dinner we crashed and woke up at 3am on 21 April…
Chris and Chantal 