"Fly Away From Here" - Tuesday 8th March 2016

---

---

The BBA V3 has decided to name each blog after a popular song relating to our travels and adventures and it is with high hopes that we can find a new song title every day that has some relevance to our travels.Todays is an obscure(for us anyway)song by Aerosmith.

The hope of sending the first blog from the A380 near Mt Isa in Queensland wasn’t successful. The small print in the Emirates folder with simple instructions on how to use the Wi-Fi on board also had a note to say that connection can’t always be guaranteed and so it was to be on this occasion.

Our second dinner was as tasty as the first and even though our body clocks were saying it was 3am we had no problem in cleaning off the plate of food plus an Aussie wine that wasn’t half bad.

It was to be 14 hours from Brisbane to Dubai so there is plenty of opportunity to read, sleep, get up and wander around in the darkened cabin or stare at the TV screen with 535 movies plus thousands of songs to listen to.

We both chose a bit of each and it didn’t seem too long before the hot towels were coming out again which could only mean breakfast wasn’t far away from being served.

We had realised on the Auckland to Brisbane sector of the flight that we had(or at least I had) chosen the wrong row of the aircraft cabin to be seated for a 14 hour flight, that is one row behind where parents with babies are seated so they can make use of a cot attached to a bulkhead.

It didn’t turn out too bad when one can take refuge from an unsuspected cry by ensuring that headphones are well attached to the head and you are watching a movie or listening to music.

Breakfast was tasty even though our body clocks were telling us that it should have dinner we were expecting to liven up our taste buds.

Whoever was at the controls of the A380 as we touched down in Dubai made the best and smoothest landing we have ever experienced.Again, it is hard to imagine how that huge aircraft can so lightly return to earth. Of course there may not have been anyone at the actual controls as we are sure we have seen somewhere that aircraft more often than not land with only a computer with all the instructions loaded to help.

Terminal 3 at Dubai Airport is relatively new as we recall watching a TV programme a couple of years ago about its construction(actually I think I saw on Sky TV that the programme is still running, probably the umpteenth repeat!).

It is like a long, flat worm dotted with Airbus A380’s most having arrived like us in the early morning so that their next flight out is before the desert un warms the place to temperatures that man prefers not to commence flights in as aircraft have a safety zone which can often be exceeded in Dubai.

We had a 2 ½ hour wait for the last sector to Paris which gave time to again be the last passengers off the economy deck of the aeroplane, freshen up and brush our teeth and buy some very well priced duty free Bombay Gin and Brandy to last us.....well we are not sure how many weeks of the BBA V3.

Terminal 3, like the city of Dubai, is a true cosmopolitan mix of people of more races and creeds than you could hope to see in any one place. Reading the arrival and departure boards threw up names of places we from New Zealand struggle to comprehend or even find easily on a map of the world. Some of those people have weird habits.....least said about that!-

Arriving and departing from Terminal 3 is a big help at Dubai Airport and so there is no need to take the very efficient driverless train to another part of the airport complex.

With our next A380 to fly in waiting at Gate 2 we surveyed the mass of people waiting to board the aircraft and like the airport concourse it was a real mix of nationalities.Surprisingly,for an airline from a Arab state there were very few people who looked like they came from the UAE or nearby Arab countries. There was a strong sense of French flair amongst the passengers and a fair hint of that mysterious (at least to us) French language one could hear in conversation.

After waiting in a queue of several aeroplanes we lifted off for the 6 ½ flight to Paris leaving Dubai behind until we return as part of our flight home at the end of August.

Continental breakfast was underway quickly even though the pilot had not turned off the seat belt signs due to some turbulence. The crew didn’t seem bothered by the light rolling motion and they were vigilant in ensuring that passengers remained seated at the aeroplane climbed to its cruising altitude of 35,000 feet and out of the light turbulence.

Oddly enough even though we had been well fed since we left Auckland and our body clocks were saying ‘coffee and a biscuit before bed ‘we were pleased at the light snack that was the continental breakfast.

Our seating on this sector was back in row 60 about mid cabin and well away from mothers and babies although on this flight there seemed to be only one in our part of the cabin.

However, the other passengers around us gave us reason to keep our mouths closed when several of them demonstrated various forms of coughing and sneezing. We think we might be lucky not to come down with some bug or other in the next week although Gretchen is convinced her programme of buccalene burner will get her through OK.

The woman next to Gretchen kept ticking something up her nose which left an aroma of air freshener until she finally went to the bathroom and came back smelling ‘normal’.

Both she and the guy in the next seat seemed to be averse to flying with the guy pulling a jersey with a hood over his head for both takeoff and landing.

Lunch came and went and then Paris came into view, well at least on the Air show which features a camera placed high on the tail of the aircraft which gives you a panorama of the land ahead including the runway which the aeroplane is hopefully heading for to return us to earth.

As we did in Dubai we worked out where the plane had to land and like in Dubai it softly touched down.

Now the real part of the adventure and the BBA V3 gets underway.

We joined the crowd of passengers without EU passports and shuffled along making good progress towards the 2 border police(yes that is what they are called in France, not immigration)who were stamping passports with such speed it is not surprising that refugees and others from Syria etc want to come here.

It seemed no questions were being asked as long as you had a valid passport you were in!

We quickly recovered our two suitcases from the carousel amid the throngs of people who couldn’t find theirs and we were off to pick up our brand new Peugeot 308 and on our way to Bruetil-sur-Iton and some sleep.

The woman who served us at the Eurolease car location gave us a quick lesson in how the car started hand brake and GPS, none of which was anything like the cars we drive. This will be interesting!

Despite the fact that we had the name of the village, road address and co-ordinates for the Cintray Parc Residence which was where we were staying she could not get the GPS to take the information and give us a route to our accommodation.

Finally after checking with the accommodation she worked out that simply putting in the name of the accommodation did the trick and we were on our way.

The vehicle comes with everything except much petrol so a stop at the first gas station was necessary and this was just a couple of kilometres down the road.

Easy you may say. Well it would have been had we asked how one opens the cover of the petrol tank before we left the car yard.

With other cars building up behind us at the automatic gas station we finally found that the cap only required a gentle push to open. Thankfully the cash card worked and we were on our way easily following the GPS as we moved lanes from left to right and right to left to stay on track out of the western side of Paris and into the countryside.

With about 20km left to run to Bruetil-sur-Iton we stopped in at a Cora supermarket for our initial food supplies. More about the location of supermarkets and relation to small French villages later.

Challenge #2 with the 308 came when the keyless locking system wouldn’t lock as we started into the supermarket. After trying all sorts of things we discovered that the boot had not been fully closed on our 150km drive from Paris and after giving it a good bit of downward pressure and hearing it click, the rest of the locking system worked!

Our accommodation easily found despite it being in the middle of countryside with not another house to be seen, we had time to send emails to family to say we had arrived safely, an early dinner, a refreshing shower (the first in 2 days!)and it was time for sleep, which came very easily.

---