Welcome to England…

…It’s a chilly 2˚ and the time is 5:06am. On behalf of the cabin crew and myself, thank you for flying with Qantas.

I’m sure all of you will agree that these words aren’t what you want to hear as your plane pulls into Heathrow airport. Never the less, we grabbed our bags and made our way through the airport in what must’ve been a record breakingly quick time. See, we were the first flight to land so there were no queues and our luggage came out almost straight away. Just how we like it.

Next on the agenda was getting from the airport to my mum’s house. We had hired a car because the bus that runs is a ridiculous £30 per person. So we donned our thickest jumpers and waited to be collected and taken to where our car was waiting. A few minutes later a mini bus covered in green logos and writing pulled up and we frantically loaded our luggage and clambered into the warmth. As we neared our destination, we realised that we were on a completely different bus and that the green logos were for a different company. The driver was kind enough to drive us to the right place which was a massive help.

So we got our car, a VW Jetta, and the cramming began. We had 4 massive suitcases and about 6 pieces of hand luggage that were barely classified as hand luggage and we had to fit it all into a car that is by no means big. Finally, with suitcases taking up seats and bags on our laps, we were off.

We arrived in Brighton at my mum’s house which was lovely. Of course, in true english fashion, the kettle was put on and a nice big cup of tea was brewed. My sisters, Sophie and Becca, then came around to briefly say hi to us all with their children which was lovely. We then felt the jetlag kick in and were all in bed by about four in the afternoon.

Sorry about the lack of photos but we’ve all been too exhausted lately!

We’ll make another post once we’ve done a few more things and got some photos.

And We’re Off

Finally after months of hard work we’re off! The kids and I are now in Bali while Markus is still back at home tidying up the loose ends (poor thing!)

There is already so much to share since our last post already!

First is our experience with the airport. So, we get to the airport with about two and a half hours to spare which is quite an achievement for me, I’m sure anyone that knows me will agree. Everything was going well until the time came to check our bags in. Now, we suspected our bags would be a bit over but we were hoping we’d be able to use some of our charm to get our bags through without paying extra fees. The lady, however, was having none of it and probably rightly so. We had a limit of 80kg and our bags all up were about 18kgs too heavy.

Right, so we took our bags back and began to take out anything that would hopefully bring us under the 80kg mark. We donned our thickest t-shirts and jeans, tied all sorts of jumpers around our waists, wore two pairs of socks and filled our hand luggage with anything that would fit. By the time we came back to the counter (to be served by a different lady to our delight) we were looking like we were off to Antarctica not Bali, but eventually, the lady at the counter let us off even though we were still 3kgs over.

Finally we could relax! A few of Kir’s friends had caught the train to the Airport to see us off which was lovely. However, after a lot of photos, hugs and what seemed to be an endless stream of tears, the time came to say bye.

Kirana and her friends who came to say bye at the airport

Finally the time came to say goodbye to one of Kirana’s best friends

From then on everything went very smoothly and we had a great flight. The hotel is gorgeous and the kids are loving it which is always a good thing.

Now the only thing that is still heavily weighing on our minds is the wait till Monday to see if the new owners can finally settle into the house. We’ll keep you posted!