Au Revoir Nouvelle Zelande, Bonjour France

What a wonderful journey to get to France we have had.  It was a busy busy time leading up to our departure on Monday (2 Sept), with Gregg working right up until the Friday beforehand.  It was his last day at ING/OnePath/ANZ, and we had to finish packing up our house and put it in storage...and pack over the weekend.

As I start to write this Gregg is watching some French tv.  His goal is to improve his French 100% every day.    From his starting point of 'Allez allez' and 'Leo le chat' it is a pretty achievable goal at the moment.

Here are some photos...and when I get more used to this blog thing again they will relate more to the words, but in order to get this up and going, they are all here at the start. 

At Auckland Airport ready to go

At Melbourne Airport in transit.  Great kids play area. Little Elena is up way past her bedtime and her little cheeks are flushed red.   

In Dubai hotel restaurant.  After a sleep.  

41 degrees out of the water, probably 35 degrees in the water.

2am and in the hotel corridor overlooking the airport runway.  Off for breakfast

High fives all round.  This guy was from Burma. 

At Dubai to check in.

Yay for strollers at the airport. 

Coming into Nice.  Sleeping baby boy, excited little girl. 

Stage one of our journey was Auckland - Melbourne - Dubai.  Elena is a born traveller and seems to have loved every moment of the planes and airports so far.  We boarded the plane and she chose her seat as soon as we got to our row, settled in and was stoked when she got the kids pack and her buddy for the flight from the Emirates crew.  The meals on trays in special boxes, the entertainment screens in her seat arms (we had bulk head seats), the head phones, all of it - just excited her.  Add into that all the neat things that Nana Jan and Nana Rose had got for her for her airplane carry on luggage. She was soooo awesome to travel with.  Jonathan, not so good for the whole trip...just most of it.  He didn't have a seat, and because he is a cling on to me at the moment, he was on me pretty much the whole time.  Although Gregg dealt with his fair share of the time he spent screaming his head off as we descended into Melbourne (sorry rest of the plane) but apart from that he has been great too.  He slept a lot - 6 hours in one stint...on me, so I was glad when he woke up and I could move again.  He too liked the packs from the flight crew and the Nanas.  He gobbled down things from Elena's kids meals as well as ours.  Met a Spanish girl going home with her 7 month old son.  She lives in NZ with an Italian hubby - who she met travelling to NZ for a holiday. 

Trying to enter Dubai was interesting.  We got into the slowest line in the world ever at customs.  Then we had a women who didn't even look at us when we got to the desk, kept talking to her friend across the counter, yawned so hard we could see into her stomach and as good as fell asleep at her desk.  Then we thought there was something wrong as it was taking soooo long, then she called over what looked like a supervisor...and she threw a piece of screwed up paper at him.  She did wake up at one point to smile and say 'Hi Baby' to Jonathan with lots of enthusiasm.  As we waited in the very slow line to even get to the sleepy lady, we had time to wonder about what the men wore under their 'white dresses' and where Gregg could get some of the lovely rubber Japanese-toilet (aka drag queen) like sandals.  So their was a little amusement at least at 6am.  But....Welcome to Dubai.  Yeah Right.

We stayed in an airport hotel overlooking the runway at Dubai airport. Where they were very welcoming.   After a quick visit from housekeeping to make a little bed for Elena and bring a portacot for Jonathan we snuggled into bed about 7am.  A few hours later we went for a swim on the roof top.  I had planned to go back and take some photos overlooking the city from the roof, but our next little nap (supposed to be for an hour) turned into a sleep marathon and it was middle of the night when we woke up again.  So our sleep clocks are doing odd things.  We had breakfast at 2am at the café in the lobby.  Jonathan had all the staff lining up to do high fives with him as he toddled around.  And then headed back to the airport for the flight to Nice. 

Another successful flight for us.  Although, every hour does seem to drag when you are holding a wriggling toddler, a sleeping toddler or a hungry one.  (Sigh.)  We sat next to a French girl with her 9 month old son who live in Dubai.  She was off to a surprise hen's do in Monacco for her friend Stephanie.  Nice.  But there were a lot more kids on this leg.  Behind us was a family with 4 kids...the older boy and girl seemed to be looking after the younger two.  At one point I did peek-a-boo over the back of my seat with the little boy who then seemed to calm down.  Did a quick walk down the aisles and came back to drama where another passenger had been yelling at the family with the 4 kids.  I later met her during another aisle walk (there were lots of them with Jonathan) and she said she had watched for hours as the parents had done nothing to look after their kids or help them calm down, and it 'drove me nuts' to see 'your baby entertaining their little boy'.  On other walks, Jonathan and I met a bunch of guys who all wanted to do high fives with him, and in another part of the plane near us, two other burly guys played with paper drinking cups that Jonathan kept handing to them.  So nice of them.  And more high fives! 

And then we arrived in Nice.  A hot day, hot airport.  We got our bags (very slowly) and then found where to pick up our lease car.  We are leasing a Grand Scenic Renault for our holiday.  Elena is now forward facing in the car because in our haste to unpack the car at Auckland airport, we forgot the tether straps to keep her rear facing.  She is loving being able to see where she is going rather than where she has been.  A quick GPS introduction, and we loaded our destination into it.  Fanjeaux.  And away we went at what seemed like the wrong way round the round about and down the wrong side of the road, at over the speed limit.  More of that later.

Sorry for the long time getting a first post up.  I'll probably include links to photos on facebook (but will include the public link in case you aren't facebook members you can still see them).  Will love to get any comments, questions or suggestions!!!