G'Day Brisbane, Australia!

It's 6 am on Friday, the 10th of November. A new day is about to begin in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. And I'm wide awake. I guess the jetlag still enjoys messing up my nights and days, but I'm starting to get the point now :) We arrived to Brisbane yesterday morning around 7 am.. after a 3-day trip via Riga, Istanbul, Dubai and Singapore airports.

I left home on Monday night after a busy day finishing things at work, packing my suitcase and saying the last good-byes. My dad drove us to the airport in Riga, 300 km away from Tallinn. I still can't explain how grateful I am to have the best dad in the world. I'm really glad he was the last one that I got to say good-bye to before leaving, and he definitely will be the first one I'm going to see once I get back from this trip around the world. Anyways, the first night at Riga was pretty shocking. It was cold at the airport and me and Heili found it really hard to fall asleep. It looks like Ann was the only one of us that actually dreamed of something that night as she enjoyed her sleep on the 'comfy' airport bench. After looking around in the departure hall, we found those two massage chairs with Heili, except that they weren't working as you gotta insert money in it and we had no Latvian coins with us. Anyways, those leather chairs were way more comfy and warm than the metal benches, so at least that made amends for the sleepless night at the airport :)

At 6:35 on Tuesday morning we left Riga and the first flight took us to Istanbul, Turkey. I don't remember much about these 3 hours on the plane, so I guess I finally did get some sleep after all. We had the whole day in Istanbul before the next flight would leave for Dubai, so we decided to get the €10 visa and exchange some Turkish liras to have a look around in the center of the half European, half Asian city. There's this metro that takes you from the Ataturk airport to Aksaray where you can get a tram to Sultanahmet on the historical peninsula. That part of the city is on the European side (known as Rumelia) of the Bosphorus strait and is famous for its many mosques. It's the old part of the city which is beautiful and clean with many parks, shops and cafés. However, if you aren't used to it you might get a bit tired after a little while of all these colourful street markets, fake Nike and Adi shoes, staring Turkish men and their incomprehensible comments. Don't know if it's for the Arabic culture where men have more power than women, but most of the shops we came across on the streets were for men, too. So after a walk from one mosque to another, a lunch at one of the street restaurants and some shop inspection, we headed back to the airport to wait for the next flight to Dubai. On the way back I must have fallen asleep on the train because I had Ann to continuously wake me up, otherwise I might have been kidnapped by one of the many Turkish men sitting around us. As our city tour ended up short and we still had plenty of time at the airport, we decided to go for a little coffee at the Starbucks. That, as the rest of the Turkey's biggest city, was an experience on its own. The first thing we noticed were the male waiters and barmen (all men again! what's wrong with the city?), which actually wasn't that bad as it made it very easy to get a free latte for a simple smile (thank you Mr Vulcan :)) What an enjoyable half an hour with a ginger latte and blueberry muffin. The next three hours passed by just waiting for the plane. We got our huge and heavy bags back from the baggage store room (which we later realised had been an unnecessary hassle as we could have checked the baggage in from Riga to Brisbane directly!) and headed on.

The check-in dude was nice again and gave us the whole seat row on the plane, so we could actually sit back, relax and enjoy the Emirates 5-star service in the air. The personal entertainment station was really cool: hundreds of good movies that are currently on in the cinemas, a wide choice of music from classics to the UK chart hits, including the best albums of all times, and the inflight camera that shows you a picture in real time both forward and downward of the airplane. So I got to see The Devil Wears Prada and listen to the best music from Johnny Cash (thanks, Kalle, for the CD that was continously playing in my car) to Justin Timberlake (yey! Sexyback) :D And the flight attendants! One of them thought he would show us what a real man can do: bring the stars down for a girl. He switched off the cabin lights and made these little artificial stars appear on the ceiling. Full service, you know! :) It was also the first time I actually enjoyed the meals on board. The 6-course dinner included some sea food, fresh salad, 2 main dishes to choose from, delicious chocolate and cheese cakes, cheese and biscuits, and loads of wine and other spirits to make your flight go smoother. Yummie, we had loads of white wine, and I guess that's why the 4 hours from Istanbul to Dubai really seemed to fly.

Dubai airport is massive, imagine palm trees actually growing inside the airport building. And the duty free shops are open all night long, so we ended up buying two nice Guess wallets and some Lancome cosmetics (a) Girls, girls, girls :D Unfortunately we missed our beauty sleep that night and stayed up till the next flight took off for Singapore at about 9 am in the morning. The next two flights were long and tiresome, and the entertainment station wasn't that much fun either as it seemed to be an older release with just a few movies to choose from, but the meals and some Bailey's on ice made it up again :)

With a short 30-minute stop in Singapore, we arrived to Brisbane about 15 hours after the take off from Dubai. The last few hours of the flight were exciting, we could see the Lost Continent down under: vast deserts with no life whatsoever. Massive.. and empty! You could actually immigrate the whole Europe or half of the Chinese population on that area out there, except that nobody would probably ever wanna live there. However, the coastal areas are fantastic and we could see that as soon as the plane approached Brisbane. It's not all flat, but has got some little cute hillsides and the curvy Brisbane river that runs through the city and flows into the ocean between the Sunshine and Gold Coasts. The airport's not too big and the airport staff seemed to be nice and friendly, even though it was early morning hours the whole terminal was already packed with people.

The passport control and baggage claim was no big hassle, and after a short while we were already out where Ashish had come to pick us up (thanks Ash). Oh, I gotta tell you about a funny incident from the carpark: I thought I'd sit infront so I could talk to Ash while he's driving back home, the problem is that I forgot about the left-hand traffic (that I'm just not used to) and almost got in the car on the driver's seat, before Ash could actually say 'Hey, on the other side!' :D Gosh, how embarrassing but we all got to laugh a lot. The first impression of the city was good, but the first day passed by in the bedroom sleeping off the tremendous jetlag. What a dream come true! Shower, bed, pillow and blanket :) Goodnight, Brisbane!