After a couple of chilly weeks leading the weather into winter (including rain and plenty of snow in the mountains pushing the 2019 snow season to start a week early) departure day finally arrived.
I always get into such a flap for the weeks before a trip and this time with 6+ weeks preparation it was more hectic but this time trying to have a reasonable sound financial stockpile to cover the absence was a tad challenging (but I met my goal there) and I have always prepared my fussy choice of dog food (two mixed foods, cheese, meaty balls and steamed vegies) and with Knox now a solo, old and mostly deaf dog he has the added pleasure of a bone each lunchtime, so there are nearly 50 trimmed, individually wrapped bones in the freezer! I think he will be fine.
Departure time wasn’t till 7pm so there was first a busy day of vet checkup (infected ear - Knox, not me), work filing and receipts, packing, cleaning and goodbyes. Qantas gracefully granted an upgrade for the first leg to Brisbane, which left a bit after the scheduled 7pm time, but the couple of bubbles in the lounge made this acceptable!
Flight to brisbane was fine at the front of the pointy end of the plane, time to stretch legs and continue the fortification before boarding what was a very, very full flight to Dubai nor what I would call impressive service or food from Emirates I. Economy , and their gluten free is very tokenistic and not at all tasty, and frugal with the wine! I won’t say it was particularly comfortable but I did arrive safely with a few reasonable movies (several on my must watch list so that was good) on time!'
Arrival into Dubai was on time, pretty easy off then a 5 mile walk through from the arrival gate, through security and a short stint in the lounge for another coffee and teeth clean, then off for a tad late departure.
By comparison the last 90% full plane, the flight to Vienna was about 20% full. Not that the service was at all good. With 24 crew with not much to do I thought they might have offerer a wine glass refill.
Arrival was easy and quick through immigration and met by an Intrepid representative and off to the hope - the Hotel Magdas. The hotel is most interesting as it was previously a nursing home until opening as a hotel in 2015. The conversion was carried supported by students from the m.nearby academy of visual arts who repurposed furniture, making seats out of book cases, a cut in half chair became my bedside table and all sorts of other things. All very inventive. The hotel was fairly minimalist in terms of rooms, but the service was good and well located near a huge park and not far to all the sight.
We unpacked and headed out to explore a bit in the city edge, wander along the Danube canal, stopped for a drink then staggered back and sleep came in a flash.
Warm 32 degrees. Full of sunshine.
Carlene
2019-06-17
Love reading this. Makes me think I should venture further than Canberra one day:)
Linda
2019-06-17
Sunny and 32 degrees! I have weather envy!