26 Hours of High-Altitude Fun and Frivolity

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Our usual airline of choice (Korean Air) would have had us leaving Brisbane at the civilised time of 8:30am. Alas, not this time. We chose to fly Emirates, which had the unfortunate departure time of 2:30am. We were in for a long Sunday – 33 hours to be exact! Thankfully, check-in at Brisbane Airport was a breeze (not too many queues at that hour) and we were on our way. While I opted for a last minute kip on the comfy lounges, Kohen spotted our pilots and had a chat to them. To his delight, they offered for him to visit the cockpit once we were aboard. We had no sooner boarded, found our seats and dumped our gear before a hostess ushered us up to the pointy end of the plane. Kohen had a blast sitting in the co-pilot’s seat and checking out the flight deck/cockpit. It was a great thrill for him to chat to the pilots and I think they were impressed with his knowledge of fly-by-wire flight control systems (No – I don’t know what it means either). Anyway, things were off to a sterling start, with Emirates looking like our new favourite airline. Although weary, we were all excited to be underway. The journey would have us hop through Singapore and Dubai (both relatively quick stops) before landing in Madrid at 7:30pm Sunday night – some 26 hours later.

During the brief wait in Singapore, we had what was always going to be a fated meeting with some fellow passengers. With seats in the waiting area limited, and baggage everywhere – we found a spot and moved some bags to one side. When their owners returned, we scooted up and sat down together. Natalie started talking to Shea and David only to realise that they shared the same hairdresser (whom they had both visited just prior to leaving Brisbane – obviously a female thing). Their hairdresser had told both Natalie and Shea about the other during their respective extensive sessions in the salon and that she thought we must all be on the same flight. Turns out she was right, and we had a great time chatting to them, and David (who is from Madrid) gave some great tips about places to see. We would run into them again and again during the next two flights, but unfortunately fate would reunite us once more at Madrid airport.

So, we made it to Madrid a bit early and navigated to the baggage collection area. We had met one other girl from Brisbane on the plane (Sarah), and suddenly the airport was deserted but for us, Shea and David, and Sarah. We had all made it safely, but unfortunately all of our bags had conspired to have their own little stopover in Dubai – Bugger! The baggage staff already knew all about it, as the airline had been in contact. The bags would arrive tomorrow and be delivered to our apartment. No biggie – we would be in Madrid a few days. We left the airport in high spirits despite our setback - we hadn’t lost our bags, they had just been misplaced by a continent and a few thousand kilometres. Luckily, the early landing had given us some time to deal with the luggage fiasco, and still make it to the apartment at our scheduled time of 9:00pm. I ducked to the small supermarket at our neighbourhood train station (Principe Pio) for some quick supplies, and we had a simple dinner before rolling into bed well exhausted.



The Story of Juan

This trip sees us joined by the fictional character, Juan. Juan is a young Spanish fellow accompanying us on the trip, and providing us with help/hindrance along the way. It's difficult to describe Juan at this point, as my knowledge of him is as limited as those of you reading this blog. I hope he will prove to be a great joy to have along, but anything is possible. My initial thoughts are that his shenanigans may result in more heartache than helpfulness, but this remains to be seen.



Day 1 - Juan

Instead of sensibly having a quiet night prior to our long journey to Madrid, Juan chose to have a big night in Brisbane, before meeting us at the airport check-in around 12:30am. I didn't feel the need to ask him too many questions, but he had clearly had a good night given his generally dishevelled look, and slurred speech. Juan certainly packed light (just one day-pack with his essentials) so he was able to breeze though check-in with relative ease. Once aboard, he wasted no time in sweet-talking one of the hosties into a business class upgrade - unbelievable. Granted, he is a good looking bloke, but I have never seen such skill in talking his way into good luck. He tells me the hostie and his mother grew up together as children in Spain, and she was doing it as a favour to him being a friend of the family - but I have my doubts. I think he just wanted a good excuse for not being able to get us all upgraded. Anyway, we didn't see much of Juan on the trip as he hobnobbed it in business class. To his credit, he did manage to sneak a couple of Chivas Regals and a Verve Clicquot back for Natalie and I. Of course, given he only had his carry-on bag, he had no issue with lost luggage in Madrid. One small justice though - he forgot a jacket, so was the coldest of all of us on the metro to the apartment. When we arrived he was at least able to help the conversation with the land-lady, as her English was very limited. Juan was also pretty wrecked, despite his business class comforts, so we all called it a night after dinner.

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Photos

Captain Kohen
Kohen enjoying the controls of a Boeing 777.

Emirates First Class
Ahh ... If only. (C'mon Kohen - Back to our real seats)

Singapore
Ahoy there me maties! (Ships galore in Singapore)

Shake it like a Polariod Picture!
Photobomb level - Über!!

Emirates Courtesy Polariod
My crew! Many thanks to the Emirates crew for the memento.