Dubai to Sydney

It's a long, long thirteen hours home from Dubai but adding at least an hour and a half at the airport made it very difficult for passengers and crew alike. Perhaps it was nervous excitement which got us through the reverse leg on the way to France or perhaps it was fear but on the way home, our chief companion was boredom. We both watched movies, listened to music, sent emails, ate our meals, tracked the progress of the flight ... Sue got so bored, she not only read the inflight magazines but she also knew where all the safety exits were and practised the brace position from detailed information on the safety card.

We did manage some sleep but not as much as the bloke in the window seat beside us. Much shorter than us, he seemed to be able to get his feet up behind his head in the "sleeping upward dog" position and curled up for the hours between feeding times.

About eight hours into the flight, the announcement was made that anyone who has watched movies about doomed aircraft flights dreads. "If anyone on board the aircraft has medical training, would they please notify a crew member." Luka Kovac and Jim Kildare rushed forward, but were rejected as escapees from the inflight entertainment and were usurped by a veterinarian nurse from Collaroy. Visions of a "Flying High" crisis loomed and I was glad I had followed Sue's advice and not chosen the chicken. It's always those who have chicken who get sick.

We were in need of Leslie Neilsen and it wasn't long before I wondered who would be delivering all the corny lines.

At then end of the flight, the sight of a steward with a bandaged paw and a wet nose exposed the mystery and also explained why service had declined in the last third of the flight. As a result, we were both peeing orange from dehydration in the stalls as Mascot.

Our traveling companion had been away from family for three weeks and our delays in Dubai looked certain to rob him of matching with his connecting flight home. When we enquired where home was, he asked "do you know of Tamworth at all?" It might be a small world but its full of big coincidences.

If it had been good crossing the Australian coast near Kangaroo Island and seeing the lights of Adelaide in the nose camera of the plane, walking out into Sydney sunshine as we went in search of a taxi was just bliss. Dorothy was right.

We retreated to family at Maroubra and a secreted key allowed us into the house seven hours before they came home and most of those we spent sleeping. After the best pie, peas and mashed potato I have tasted was rinsed down by my favourite wine, we crashed for more sleep and the start of the process of bringing our bodies back into the rhythm of home. Minds might take a tad longer.

Two nights in Sydney and then we fly the last leg home to Tamworth.

Paris to Dubai

The flight to Dubai was uneventful until the fifth hour when a young passenger - clearly intoxicated from the smell as she passed me - became unruly and had to be restrained. She climaxed her performance by vomiting over several fellow passengers and spent the last hour of the flight under close supervision.

We arrived at Dubai tired, both of us unable to sleep on the flight. We changed the time on our watches and changed currencies to get ourselves some breakfast. Coming through security checks and being directed by airport personnel, it was interesting to reflect how we had learned to take these procedures in our stride and treat them in the same way as we might waiting in line at the supermarket. When we first arrived in Dubai, two months ago, we were setting foot on foreign ground for the first time and our eyes were everywhere for dangers. Both of us expected to whisked away for some bogus reason into a dark room interrogation or to be robbed without knowing and left in the UAE without medication or contact with our embassy or ... well the fears were endless.

Two months later, we wandered along, chatting about the flight and secure from imagined dangers. At the security check, we smiled at each other as newbies complained at having to remove this or that while we just dropped things on the tray, removed our shoes and belts and said thanks to the staff. By now, the lure of country of birth was reaching out across the Indian Ocean and I inadvertently dropped a "thanks cobber", causing a raised eyebrow until one of his mates explained it was an Aussie greeting. He gave me a wink and on we went.

Experience, like Sue, is a wonderful teacher.

We cobbled together some sort of breakfast combination - Sue had a selection of breads and a coffee from one vendor and I chowed down on fruit salad and the world's smallest mug of tea from another.

We found some seats and I wrote whilst Sue dozed. Once our flight was posted, we made our way to the departure lounge, along with the other 498 passengers ... less, of course, the business and first class coves who sat in a licensed lounge with cushioned chairs, literally above us. As time came and went, an announcement told us there would be a delay of an hour in boarding, meaning we were all contained in the secured boarding lounge with no access to food or drink apart from a single water bubbler. It was worse for the women, because although accustomed to standing in line and doing the dunny dance while waiting for their turn in public toilets, it was made more excruciating by the provision of only one toilet ... that's one single porcelain bowl.

Above us, Mrs Chase Manhattan was grumbling about the colour combination of cushions and drapes.

If tempers were being tested by the time we got on the plane, then the 45 minutes we sat on taxiways after doors were closed, gave them a thorough examination. Lack of cool air inside a fuselage being hit by 40 degree heat was a further cause for complaint.

We were just glad to have a seat on the bus and long before it left, we were already dozing.

Day 2 - Arriving in Paris

It was a mammoth day which started in Tamworth and ended in Paris about 27 hours later but I managed to take that bright eyed little girl from Roberts Creek all the way to her dreams.

If there were two things which marked that passage of time, they would be Sue's constant wonder - reinventing itself at every new experience - and my unexpected calm. To Kym, a person no one outside the family knows, my thanks for you confidence and sooth saying. Not one moment of anxiety.

Our flights in the monstrously large A-380 were both pleasant and surprising, given that each of the two legs held 20% more than the Capitol Theatre does for a full performance. The meals were higher quality airline food than I would have expected but I was surprised how many people at the chicken. Don't they know that if you eat the chicken you always die on planes? I didn't want to be turned into a dribbling, farting unconscious fool like Robert Stack so I chose the fish. Sydney to Dubai was long ... really long with nothing to look at as the entire flight is through darkness. Movies and TV shows help but sleep is what you need and we couldn't afford to let Sue drift of. I kept her walking and stretching and she survived with nothing more than sore shoulders but then, when you are carrying the weight of expectation she is, that's not surprising. Her planning and pre-reading meant than the special stocking and exercises stopped any swelling in our legs and feet. Sun glinted off the starboard wing as we were on approach to land.

Dubai

Dubai airport is beautifully designed. Sometimes lots of money can be well spent and there's not a hint of garishness. We had the worst cup of hot water, chocolate syrup we have ever had. They had passed it through coffee grounds from three weeks earlier and then topped the last two inches with pressure canned whipped cream ... but the staff were pleasant. Sue wanted an apple but they told me the stack of apples on the counter were "for display" and if I wanted an apple I would have to by the pre-made fruit salad. We did: it had lovely melons, pineapple, pomegranate seeds ... lots of fruit and really delicious ... but no apple. Another place had seafood on the menu, with large lobster swimming in the taking checking out their new homes. Whist waiting to board, we changed undies and freshened up, which, on reflection, might have been better done in the toilets.

The largest eye openers - as it were - was in the toilets. In the gents, apart from the standard urinals, the stalls offered the choice of a porcelain squat hole (with supporting rails) or an oversized sit down with the bowl half full of water. Both were meant to function that way. Must be hard for folks from these parts when they come to Australia? I was greeted by the toilet attendant, who although speaking no english, was one of the most pleasant people I have ever met, all be it briefly. He turned on the taps for me, pulled out the paper towels and placed them on my hands and muttered his only words, "Australia wonderful" - forgot I had my T-shirt with the list of Australia greetings shaped into the map of Oz!

Our second leg took us up the Gulf of Oman and straight over countries who have been subject to wars as a norm. Briefly over Kuwait, then Iraq and Turkey before we reached the Black Sea. They were odd hours spent travelling up the Tigris River, passing just to the north of Baghdad with Iran a constant neighbour to our right. We had finished our late breakfast, which was sumptuous even in economy, whilst 38 000 feet below a history of warring which goes back before recorded history lay across the landscape. Trapped by geography, culture and that ancient history of practised self destruction, mums and dads and their children with big brown eyes which never smile - other people's children as Eric Bogle calls them - wouldn't even notice as we sped paste at 900km an hour.

As we crossed the Black Sea toward Romania, a three year old began singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", as sweetly as any child could serenade their mother. Another, of similar age and a few rows away, joined in for the encore. The first was in Arabic, the second French.

On board GPS technology and cameras located on the tail (forward looking) and the nose showed us punters in economy what the captain was doing. The landing at Charles deGaule airport revealed a runway which looked unfinished and more dirt than asphalt. Customs were quick but bored and Ahmed, our driver, soon had us whisked away to our hotel ... right beside the Seine!

After orientation, bag opening and showers, I trotted down stairs to buy a few beers, attracting smiles and polite laughs because I was in bare feet.

The Pont de Tolbiac

We went out into the early evening, with no idea of where we were until we discovered the Seine across the Quai de Bercy which is a major road running beside the river. Over a crossing and there we were, standing on the Pont de Tolbiac looking at a river we have heard of in song, watched in movies and read about in books. It was "a moment". Another came twenty minutes later when we walked along the Port de la Gare, that section of the river front between two bridges. Restaurants on old boats were filling with Friday night Parisians, small cafes and bar served locals who sat on folding deck chairs or the ground, talking and laughing their day. No drinking restrictions here, as people lounged and talked ... and not a tourist to be seen. We stopped for fajitas and red wine and a seat at the water's edge as music started on the far side of the cafe. We were immersed in animated conversations, not understanding a word but drinking it in like a dying man does eternity.

Pont de Bercy

Should you think Paris escapes what we see at our own Circular Quay, forget it. Make do bedding under under the arches of the Pont de Bercy signified the homeless are abandoned in even the most romantic city in the world.

We crossed the Pont de Bercy bank to the right bank, passing Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, an indoor arena which hosts sports and popular entertainment. In the next few months it will host the world climbing championships, Radiohead and Justin Beiber. We followed the Quai de Bercy, venturing into the edges of Parc de Bercy - a large suburban green space which has community gardens and performance spaces, as well as walking and running pathways. We turned left before the hotel, into the Rue Francois Truffaut - film buffs will note the name - and into the Bercy Village, a collection of small cafes, restaurants, grog shops, specialty clothing ... all fronting a cobblestone pedestrian street with dining en plein air. It was colourful and vibrant and everyone's dream of a Paris evening.

TODAY'S PHOTOS

Back at the hotel, we collapsed in spasms of cultural ecstasy and the effect of a 24 hour clock whose spring had been unsprung.

What a day!