.JPG)
Today I am writing this post from the Abu Dhabi Airport Motel where we are enjoying a 21 hour stopover between Sydney and Toronto. It was almost a relief to finally get on the plane in Sydney yesterday after weeks of farewells, cleaning and packing. Mind you when we left the house it was so clean I almost wanted to remain and live in it for a little while longer.
After travelling to Sydney on the 27th we spent our last day with John's mother and brother. We also had lunch with the McKinns, Tooheys and Hamiltons. It was sad to leave but we did allow ourselves to feel a little excited. At that point it still did not seem real even after months of counting down the days until we left. When we finally arrived at the airport we encountered some problems with our luggage. It was too heavy. After much reshuffling and the purchase of an extra suitcase, we managed to come in under the appropriate weight allowance. This was a relief. I wouldn't recommend using big bags as they become too weighty. Ah well! You learn from your experiences as they say!
The first leg of the journey was very smooth. Fouteen hours went fairly painlessly thanks to Etihad's inflight entertainment system, The kids and us were fully occupied with movies, music and games. It was a bleary eyed group of five who disembarked at Abu Dhabi this morning however and not knowing whether we could find anywhere to lie down for the day was a bit of a concern. Fortune smiled on us when we were able to secure two rooms at the transit hotel. The exhorbitant rates in American Dollars dimmed into insignificnace compared to the sense of releif as we were able to rest and deal with jet lag.
We leave for Toronto at 2am local time this evening and expect to arrive at 8.15 Toronto time. We figure due to time lapses that this will be a flight of approximately 15 hours - pleanty of time to catch up on some more movies.
After travelling to Sydney on the 27th we spent our last day with John's mother and brother. We also had lunch with the McKinns, Tooheys and Hamiltons. It was sad to leave but we did allow ourselves to feel a little excited. At that point it still did not seem real even after months of counting down the days until we left. When we finally arrived at the airport we encountered some problems with our luggage. It was too heavy. After much reshuffling and the purchase of an extra suitcase, we managed to come in under the appropriate weight allowance. This was a relief. I wouldn't recommend using big bags as they become too weighty. Ah well! You learn from your experiences as they say!
The first leg of the journey was very smooth. Fouteen hours went fairly painlessly thanks to Etihad's inflight entertainment system, The kids and us were fully occupied with movies, music and games. It was a bleary eyed group of five who disembarked at Abu Dhabi this morning however and not knowing whether we could find anywhere to lie down for the day was a bit of a concern. Fortune smiled on us when we were able to secure two rooms at the transit hotel. The exhorbitant rates in American Dollars dimmed into insignificnace compared to the sense of releif as we were able to rest and deal with jet lag.
We leave for Toronto at 2am local time this evening and expect to arrive at 8.15 Toronto time. We figure due to time lapses that this will be a flight of approximately 15 hours - pleanty of time to catch up on some more movies.
