Time to go home.

Tuesday 8^th October. 

No real rush to get going this morning. We don’t really have time to do any more sightseeing, although I could probably fit in a bit more shopping……. Can’t face breakfast in the hotel again today, for the most part it’s a lovely typically French breakfast, but the bread roll is so chewy my jaw still hurts, it’s not like a crunchy baguette. I’d picked up a banana and some grapes on the way home and Trevor did a coffee run when we were ready to eat. He got a good deal on coffee and croissants. A couple were checking in as we were leaving the hotel, so we gave them our 2 unused metro tickets, so they haven't been wasted.

Using my very best French, I buy the tickets to the airport and off we go. Lunch will be whatever we can forage at the airport, ends up a sandwich from a supermarket shop, made on what looks like ‘normal’ bread but turns out to be some sort of pita bread. Easy to chew anyway! The French must have a bite like a pit bull.

The leg from Paris to Dubai goes well and I’m determined to try and snooze more. I’d like to call it sleep, but that’s being generous. As soon as we’re fed and watered and one movie watched, I turn on the music, pop on the eye mask and snuggle up under the blanket. We arrive at Dubai just after midnight and have to go through a full security check again, then there’s a bag search at the gate. Seriously? I don’t know where you could possibly pick up anything that would be a security risk. Same again for the Dubai to Sydney leg. We get fed, I watch a movie and settle in to snooze. There’s a really long gap between meals on this flight, as we discovered on the way over, but this time we’re prepared with a few snacks. We get a brief glimpse of sunrise at some point and everyone seems to have their window shades down so we miss seeing daylight for over 24 hours. We've missed Wednesday.

The shuttle bus is waiting for us when we finally get our bags and clear customs. I found someone’s passport in the self-service immigration machine and handed it in. ‘Someone’ is going to be worried when they realise it’s missing. We’re really confused about the time. On the plane, they gave us the ‘time at destination’ but when we got home it wasn’t right. Seems they forgot to allow for daylight savings.

Anyway, we’re home, and  we’ve had a great time.