Arrival!

<-- aaa, do I look (*^^&*^ happy after a 1 hour drive, a 2 hour wait, an 11hour flight, and during a 4 hour wait?

Louis gets ready to drop something over the back, and Ollie is not too bad -->

Emirates is awesome! They gave the kids colouring in pencils. They didn't hassle us to put on their seatbelts too much. The shows on the TV were pretty good too.

The boys eventually went to sleep after getting on the 10.30pm flight. Apart from kicking each other, trying to get comfortable on the too-soft pillows, and falling off them, they got some useful sleep. In Dubai, felt ok, but it was 4 hours of wandering around, trying to stay awake and stop the kids from throwing coins, paper, and dropping things down the backs of chairs, under other people's feet, on purpose. Got 2 newspapers, read none.

The flight to Nice was ok mostly, until the last couple of hours, when it started to be a bit of a torture test. We gave Louis something to eat, put on a movie, and gave him his dummy. We were all a bit ratty, but survived. Got off the plane last, and they'd locked all the doors. It took about another 15 minutes to get someone's attention through the glass.

Pulled our 100kgs off the conveyor, and thought how do we move all this? There were trolleys, but you needed Euros. Marie commenced the search through all our 7 bags, and I eventually asked someone for some money (not the first time I begged for coins already). Not sure if she understood the question, and I didn't understand the answer. Angela and Steve saved the day with the handful of coins they gave us.

Said "Bonjour Monsieur" to the customs guy in the booth. Our book says this is very important in France, and in our experience these couple of words open any door, and get anything you need! He stamped our passports with a pleasant hello and goodbye in French. Then we were out into the hall to wonder how to get a car, how to get out, how to understand the signs. I wished we'd read a bit more!

Waiting for us was Sophie the manager. What an angel! She'd been through the same going to China, but it must have been much worse. We got a car, went through some impossibly small openings, and headed into my first roundabout. You have to go the wrong way, on the wrong side of the road, and guess which road to exit that doesn't end with oncoming traffic. Thank goodness she was there to guide me through that bit, and get us to our hotel.


<-- Party on in the 33cms around the bed!


The hotel is one room, taken up completely by the 2 beds, and then with the bags and stuff all over the place. Luckily that was only for the first week.




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More shots from Perth, I forgot to post:

<-- we miss our English speaking relos already. And their kitchen is bigger than our whole unit (at present).

Maryanne chased Louis while watching Peter play soccer -->

<-- we accept dogs if you post them over (with Ollie stamps)