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Published: October 8th 2022
He who is outside the door has already a good part of his journey behind him… ~ Greek Proverb
HE SAID... Greece. It’s difficult to put into words the number of discussions, concerns, risk contingencies, alternative plans, COVID articles and extenuating factors we considered before embarking on this trip. It would be a major understatement to say this adventure has been a long time coming. A long time planning. A long time worrying. And yet it is finally here. Finally! Ren’s birthday trip. Ren’s 50th birthday trip to be precise. We’re finally, finally going.
The last time we travelled internationally was in January 2020. During the trip, as we floated down the Mekong in a long wooden boat, we heard snippets of news that a virus was spreading out of China. It was causing chaos at Chiang Mai airport. We’d spent a few days in Chiang Mai only days before. When we entered Vientiane’s airport terminal to fly home from Laos in late January 2020, we were handed face masks. We’d never encountered this before. But we donned the masks and flew back to Australia. When we landed, we discovered the world had changed. Irrevocably.
And yet here we are, travelling overseas again, two and half years on from a pandemic that changed our way of thinking
about communal life. About breakfast buffets. About strangers coughing in supermarkets. We are venturing out into in a daunting and exhilarating new world. A new world that we’re once again excited to explore.
Our lives have changed so much since our return from Laos in 2020. In the initial stages of the pandemic, we were inundated with work. There was an exponential demand for self-paced learning materials in a world where face-to-face training had disappeared in the dark shadow of social distancing. We couldn’t keep up with demand. Despite working seven-day weeks, our deadlines were constantly slipping. It was an exciting time from a business perspective, but it took a personal toll. We were run off our feet and exhausted.
And then overnight, everything changed. A general election was called. The government went into caretaker mode and all scheduled projects were put on hold. We came out the other side of the election with a new government and a divided public sector – education and skills had been separated into new departments. Key personnel disappeared overnight and scheduled projects were lost in the ether.
On the upside, I had time to rekindle a collaborative partnership with an
old friend. We started creating music together after a 22-year hiatus, and the results have been extraordinary. I’ve never felt so proud of a musical endeavour. 😊
On the downside, we experienced a downturn in work. When you run a project-based micro business, you become used to the fluctuating nature of client demand. You plan for contractual irregularities. But this was different. We desperately wanted to travel to Greece, but could we really justify this adventure?
When hope had all but disappeared, three major projects started smouldering from the ashes of the general election. Within a few weeks, contracts were signed and we were working at a feverish pace. We could finally breath. We contacted two travel agents and asked for quotes on flights to Greece. It was only a couple of months out, so we didn’t have much time to plan. But we knew we were going. It was Ren’s 50th, and nothing was going to stop us now.
We worked every day for two months, despite being sidelined with the COVID virus for a week. Amazingly, we managed to get everything on track – with the exception of one report – which I mostly wrote
on our 13-hour flight from Melbourne to Dubai.
But enough about work. There’s been a lot of change elsewhere in our lives too. We lost our beloved Jasper a few months ago. Our intuitive, inquisitive, eccentric, stoic, caring, loving kelpie is no longer supervising every last minute of our lives. Yet despite her idiosyncratic ways – and there were many of them – we are missing her terribly. She developed separation anxiety in her twilight years, which meant she needed to be with us – or at least be able to see us – at all times. With her hearing gone, she would lie in my office all day and stare at me to make sure I didn’t go anywhere without her. It was heartbreaking to see such a strong independent kelpie become so dependent in her old age.
Jasper would have hated watching us prepare for this trip. She always became anxious when our packs appeared in the dressing room. She knew what it meant – a month-long stay in the kennels. Luckily, she didn’t have to experience our preparations this time. And while it was easier to prepare without her supervising our every move and sniffing
everything that went into our packs, we missed her presence. We also noticed that Oliver (our younger kelpie) was anxious about us leaving, which has never really concerned him before. The prospect of going to the kennels alone without his big sister must have been daunting. Or maybe I was just humanising his world. 😊
Anyway, the day had come. We were leaving. We’d dropped Mia (the cat) off at a new cattery the day before, and she seemed to like it much more than her usual place of imprisonment. I worked on my report for a few hours in the morning after dropping Oliver off at the kennels, then frantically started closing down the house. Despite forgetting to power-down the water pump (which required an unplanned return trip), we made good time on our drive to the long-term parking facility just outside the airport. We were then shuttled to the airport, where we checked in and waited patiently for our flight to Melbourne. And in keeping with our travel traditions, we took a compulsory selfie with Nathaniel, the lovable cast-bronze Tassie devil in the terminal’s Arrivals Hall.
It wasn’t long before we were flying high above Bass
Strait and descending into Melbourne – the first leg of our journey to Greece. We headed straight to the international terminal and settled at our gate lounge. I found a power socket for my laptop and continued working on the report I’d committed to finishing before we arrived in Greece. I was surprised how much I got through, given I typically require very quiet environments in which to write.
We boarded on-time and set off on the second leg of our journey – a 13-hour flight to Dubai. We flew over the enormous continent of Australia for just under four hours, and it felt at times that we would never reach the north-western border of our homeland. But of course we did. As we flew over the islands of Indonesia and the vast expanse of India, I was typing away in the dark cabin while people slept and watched movies around me. And it paid off, because I finished all but a few pages of the report by the time we touched down in Dubai.
SHE SAID... An hour or so before I started writing these Notes, I had what can only be described as ‘a
very intense’ moment. It was a combination of thoughts that mingled equal parts trepidation (‘friggin hell, are we going to get through this trip in one piece?’), acceptance (‘oh well, we have prepared as well as we can’), and excitement (‘friggin hell, we are actually going on an overseas trip’)! All this in the space of one moment. 😄
But let me start at the start. Our trip to Greece starts today, and we’re sitting on the first of our two flights (the domestic leg from Hobart to Melbourne) on our way to a stopover in Dubai.
The last few days leading up to today have been a blur of meetings, packing, organising last minute travel things and preparing to close down the house for a month. We were pretty organised, but the lists seemed to be getting longer, not shorter! And to top things off, due to a delay with one of our projects, Andrew was going to have to write the final project report on the plane or in Dubai. It certainly wasn’t ideal, but Andrew was calm about the unfortunate situation, which helped to stop me from fretting about it. 😊
Yesterday we drove
Mia to a cattery on the other side of Hobart. This was a bit nerve-racking for me… her normal cattery was full by the time we booked our flights, so we had to leave her at a new place. It seemed really lovely (on acreage rather than her normal inner-city cattery), and the owner was very welcoming and gentle. I'll check in on Mia in a few days to see how she’s settling in… but really, there would be nothing I could do about it anyway.
Oliver was unusually quiet on the way to the kennels this morning, and it was also unusual that he wasn’t excitedly pulling on the lead to run into the kennels to see his friends. He has been a bit mopey in the last few months, and we suspected he was really missing Jasper. As some of you know, our beloved 16-year-old kelpie Jasper died in June. She had a great life and was a very happy and loyal dog, and we all miss her terribly.
In her later years Jasper developed acute separation anxiety (as a result of losing her hearing), and we felt extremely guilty whenever we left her. For the
first time in many years, we had been able to pack openly without having to manage her anxiety at the mere sight of our backpacks. We hope Oliver adjusts to the new situation and gets back to his normal happy self soon.
After dropping Oliver off, the rest of the morning disappeared in a very rushed and unusually disorganised manner… we drove out of the gate later than intended, and even had to double back to turn the water pump off. Thankfully traffic was light, and we arrived with plenty of time to park in the long-term car park and get the shuttle to the airport.
Hobart Airport was very quiet, so the ‘just-in-case’ extra time we’d allowed wasn’t needed. We checked-in and the uncrowded lounge actually allowed Andrew to get some work done in the hour we had until we boarded our flight.
Now back to that ‘very intense’ moment I had earlier… I suppose it has been building up for a while. As we mentioned in our Prologue, we are definitely not feeling travel match-fit. When we were travelling regularly, many travel things were right at the forefront of our minds. Obviously, we still remembered
all the big stuff like checking passport validly, visas, travel vaccinations etc. However, the smaller things had just left my brain.
One night while I was in that dreamy state between awake-ness and sleep, my brain dug up a bit of information and floated it up to my consciousness – we hadn’t checked when elections in Greece would be before we booked our airfares! It’s been years since I’d made a rookie mistake like that. Luckily on checking, the elections weren’t for another year. Phew. There were many other such issues that kept popping up. In the end I had to go looking for a travel checklist I’d written for myself about 15 years ago, and thankfully it reassured me that we hadn’t forgotten anything else.
Every single time we’ve travelled before, there have been a myriad of things that can and do go wrong; and we have dealt with them and got on with our trip. But it feels a bit different this time. We have travelled domestically to Melbourne a handful of times since COVID, and we both admit that things that gave us so much pleasure before (such as planes and airports) now fill us
with a slight dread. This is our first trip overseas since COVID, and that feeling of dread is now amplified by a factor that takes into account the BIGGER long-haul planes, the BIGGER international airports and the THOUSANDS more people we’d be crossing paths with.
However, we know we’ve done all we can to mitigate risk, and all our decisions have been made with consideration and with contingencies in place… so now our fate is in the hands of all the travel gods, in particular Hermes the Greek god of travel. 😉
Oh, and we also visited Nathaniel (the Tassie Devil sculpture at Hobart Airport) and have taken our usual pre-travel photo with him. He has always been our good luck charm for international travel! 😊
I’m really hoping that once we get through this first leg and settle in the international airport in Melbourne, this trepidation will pass and I’ll start to enjoy myself… but for now… my N95 facemask is firmly on, no eating or drinking, no touching my face, hand sanitising to the max, and evil eyes will be aimed hard on anyone who so much as sniffs in my direction. 😄
The
Qantas staff and crew on this domestic flight have been amazingly good, and it’s been one of our easiest domestic flights linked to an international flight. On that note, we are about to land in Melbourne so I will continue my Notes at another point.
Ok. I’m back.
Melbourne’s Tullamarine International Airport felt very quiet. Our five-hour stopover in Melbourne not only went quickly, but was also quite productive from a report writing point of view. We made our way from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2, and after a quick whirl through duty-free, we stopped (as per usual) at Bar Pulpo by Movida for a snack of patatas bravas, some croquettes and a sangria. Sadly, Andrew couldn’t enjoy a sangria due to the above-mentioned report writing. I’m not a fan of drinking alone, but I took one for the team and enjoyed my refreshing red sangria very much. 😉
While waiting to board our Emirates Airlines (code share with Qantas) flight to Dubai, we people-watched like we love to do; and played our favourite airport game of making up stories about our fellow passengers… while trying to ignore the very large contingency of young families with babies
and boisterous over-tired toddlers on the flight.
The flight was absolutely packed. By the time we bought tickets a few weeks ago, they’d disabled the option of selecting seats (as the flight had been overbooked). Thankfully we’d managed to get the very last two seats together when we checked in at Hobart Airport all those hours ago. Unfortunately, many people checking in at Melbourne Airport hadn’t been so lucky. Until take-off and even after that, there were a few people walking around trying to persuade strangers to swap seats with them so that they could sit with their partners and families.
We were sitting next to a couple who were nervous fliers and admitted to popping Valium tablets as soon as they sat down. They then proceeded to drink a few alcoholic drinks in quick succession and started looking a bit jittery. I watched with interest to see how this scenario would pan out… but after asking the cabin crew to take polaroid photos of them (a service the airline reserves only for the children on the flight!), they fell into a comatose state and didn’t stir for hours.
The dinner meal didn’t come out until midnight
Australian time, and I was starving by this point. Disappointingly, the lemongrass chicken thing I was served was hideous. And then I tried the suspect ‘cheesecake’ dessert. It was quite possibly the worst thing I’ve tasted in a very long time. 😞
Andrew and I managed to doze for a few hours before and after dinner. Considering it was a full flight, all the passengers in our section were very well behaved. However, there was a sick child who had intermittent coughing fits and kept waking us all up. I felt so sorry for him and for his parents, as they looked so tired and worried for the poor little guy.
At the equivalent of 4am Australian time we were served a chicken pie which was delicious. Normally my stomach wouldn’t even entertain anything resembling food at that time… but I wanted to get my body to start adjusting to the new time zone. Plus, in all my years of travelling, I’ve never met a good airline breakfast meal, so I knew I wouldn’t be eating again until after we’d landed in Dubai. The pie was delicious, and frankly one of the few highlights of the whole flight.
The little coughing kid settled about this time and we all got about four hours of sleep until breakfast – which was predictably hideous. Andrew continued working on the report before and after breakfast and managed to nearly finish it! This was very happy news! 😊
It was our first flight with Emirates Airlines and based on this experience, I wouldn’t be rushing back. So many other airlines we love have more comfortable seating, more obliging crew and better food… but we have a few more Emirates flights on this trip, so I’ll leave my final judgment until then. As for the passengers, I was pretty impressed. Everyone stayed masked without being asked, they straightened reclining seats at meal time without being asked, and there were higher than normal levels of politeness and helpfulness in general. Has COVID changed travellers’ behaviour? I will re-consider this question at the end of our trip. 😊
As I had hoped, my feelings of nervousness calmed down considerably once we crossed into the international part of Melbourne Airport. Dare I say it, it was probably good to have that intense moment and get it out of my system! I can now
fully focus on the trip and everything I have been looking forward to.
I’ve had a long time to think about this big birthday trip and figure out what I really wanted from it. I wanted to go somewhere I hadn’t visited before; somewhere that was really iconic / unique; somewhere with good weather in September; somewhere that offered a wide range of experiences; and somewhere with fabulous food. Greece was one of five shortlisted destinations, along with Peru, South Africa, Japan and Australia (as a last resort). But if I’m being very honest, it was always floating at the top of that shortlist.
But before we get to Greece, we have another quick but very very happy treat – a visit to see my brother Ralph and family who moved to Dubai in January this year. I can’t wait to see them again, and to explore their home and check out their expatriate life.
I’m also beyond excited at spending the next few days in two ‘new’ cities – Dubai and Athens! I adore that steep learning curve that forces us to go into urban survival mode in new places with all our Spidey senses turned
on. We will be learning to navigate the locality with and without maps; figuring out the currency; getting to know which banks have the best ATMs for currency withdrawal; learning to interpret the signs for Exit, Toilet, Laundry etc. (which is more difficult when the script isn’t Roman); navigating supermarkets to figure out what unique drinks and local snacks we should try; deciphering cafe menus; and absorbing and reflecting general etiquette etc etc… oh my goodness! I can’t wait! 😊
Thank you for following our travel musings; see you in Dubai!
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Jess
non-member comment
Same here
We are also worried about crowds and getting sick. We have heard some people say they travelled no worries, and others said it was a nightmare. Wishing you all the best with a safe trip.