I usually don't sleep well sitting up. The kids at home might beg to differ about that, especially when I start snoring on the couch in the living room, or sitting on my office chair in the mezzanine study.
Aircraft seats are different. They're narrow and cramped, and there's this loud background rumbling that never seems to end. The basic seat is okay for a short period but after a while one butt cheek starts to ache, and when you move a little the other chips in with a complaint. It's a never-ending search for a comfortable position that cannot be found.
I reckon I probably got about 4 hours sleep spread over five or six different periods. All such sleep cycles are shallow and don't really help to alleviate any sense of fatigue. They take the edge off but not a lot else.
Over 13 hours after take-off we were dropping down towards Dubai. The sun had just about caught up to us as the lights of the airport came into view and the pilot informed us that local time was 5:30am and the current temperature on the ground was 37 Celsius. Oh yes, I thought, balmy Dubai - let's move there.
Dubai International Airport is enormous. There really is no other way to describe it. Our bags had been checked through to Stockholm, or so we hoped, and all we had to do was find our way to the Business Lounge closest to our departure gate for Stockholm and we'd be fine. It seemed simple enough. In Melbourne airport you are probably never more than about 15-20 minutes walk from one departure gate to any other. Dubai airport is in another league.
As we were transferring from one international arrival gate to another international departure gate we didn't need to worry about either luggage or passport control as we weren't leaving the international airport space. Even given that we needed a 10 minute walk to get to the part of the terminal where the trains departed for the various onward gates, another 5 minutes on the train to get to the correct airport area and then another 10 minute walk to get to the club lounge above the normal departure lounge. After that, the departure lounge was a 10 minute bus ride from the actual plane location. It's just huge.
We could tell even before we hit one queue after another leading to the bus that we were never going to make our scheduled departure time. Fifty minutes after we were due to leave we were in the air.
And seven hours later we landed in Stockholm feeling a little tired and frazzled but surprisingly okay. Being located down the back third of the plane for the second leg in a row we took some time getting off the aircraft and another 30 minutes or so getting through passport control.
Then came the major delay of the baggage. After being held up for what seemed like ages in the passport queue we rushed down to the designated carousel only to find the rest of the plane standing around watching a few desolate bags slowly crawl past. And crawl past again. And again. After seven times I lost track and count of a certain bag I saw. Only a few bags were coming through the plastic curtain from the distribution area. I suspect we were there for another 30-40 minutes before any continuous flow of bags started to work their way through and the crowds began to thin out. We later put it down to the extra security and Robyn was sure she could see little dusty paw prints over our bags as if some beagle or other had clamoured all over them in a vain search for anything incriminating.
By this time we were starting to feel more than a little exhausted, but also worried that the driver that Robyn had arranged to pick us up might have skipped out and we would be left to vend for ourselves. Bags collected, customs skirted and we found our driver with sign in hand standing waiting for us. By this time we were two hours later than expected.
Thirty minutes after that the taxi dropped us in front of the hotel and we checked in.
Hotel Hellsten facade
The room was small, but we figured that was going to be the case all along. As long as it had a bed and a bathroom we'd be fine. The lack of a fridge was a concern but only a minor one. The concern was probably more of an Australian emotion than anything else. It being Europe we shouldn't have expected one. The room had everything we really needed and was quite fine. That is until Robyn flooded the bathroom.
Hotel room
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