touch down

We're home!

Only 20 hours and 20 minutes of flying this time, plus the usual stop overs. We broke the journey in Melbourne and stayed with Frank's Mum last night, so feel a little more human than if we had come the whole way straight.

Did you know that on an average flight there are 320 economy passengers. With each meal they receive a small butter weighing 10 grams. That is 6.4 kg of butter, without counting business or first class. Then there are all the little yoghurt containers - 80 grams there. That's hmmm 80 by 320... 8 times 3 is 24 so 24000 plus 2 times 8 is 16 so 1600 plus 2400... that amounts to 25.6 kilos of yoghurt. And since we are all sitting there twiddling our thumbs and watching movies, not much of energy is required. So all that food is just sitting there, barely being converted to energy, just hanging around keeping the plane heavy. Each passenger uses an average of four plastic cups per flight (not business or first class however - they are served in glass tableware). That is at least 1200 cups per flight. Outrageous?! Obviously I had too much time to think.

And why can't they have male and female toilets on planes, or a rule that insists men sit to pee? I detest drips on the toilet seats and floor.

And I have all sympathy for the mother of the screaming child two seats away from us, but I might have been less sympathetic if it was not a day time flight. I wanted to sleep to swap on to Australian time, but since I was still on Europe time I just stayed awake and tried to help entertain the little man. Until he passed beyond the point of entertaining and into the zone of no consolation. Eventually he passed out from exhaustion... just as we started to descend and his ears hurt. Ah well. That's life when you request a seat with more leg room.

Nothing feels quite as good as getting off a plane from overseas and knowing you are home... not in your own house, but still home. And is anything as nice as the customs office saying 'welcome back' as she stamped our passports? I don't think so.

Anyway, we're home, in the house. About to jump into our very own bed and sleep for a hundred years. (OK, maybe just 10 hours) I have a hundred blog posts buzzing around in my head and a thousand photos to sort. (Probably less than a hundred posts, but definitely a thousand photos - I just spent an hour uploading them all)

I shall return. Sooner than last time.

where's cecily?

So we swallowed our carbon footprint conscience, and jumped on a plane. Thirty two hours, three flights, two train rides, and plenty of hanging around airports later we stepped out in London.

I find plane travel an incredible experience. Incredibly tiring, drying and tedious and yet incredibly amazing to traverse the globe in little more than one day. How can this be, that I woke up in Australia and fell asleep in England? However it happened, it did and so I was able to attend my friend's Golden Wedding Anniversary celebrations. Ah. I'll endure sleeplessness, DVTs and boredom for that any day!

Ten years ago I lived in London for three years (I know, I hardly look old enough), so I installed myself as our official tour guide. We took in the usual sites and sounds before branching out under the guidance of our friends into the lush green countryside of Kent to visit the former home of Winston Churchill and a lovely ruined castle. We also marvelled at Canterbury Cathedral (No photos due to technical difficulties sorry)

Along the way I have made a number of discoveries:

• England is not in drought (yes, that means it rained nearly every day of our visit)
• Karval is wonderful, we should have it in Australia (nasty cold with incredibly stuffy nosed relieved by Karval capsules sprinkled on tissue)
• Frank is not a backpacker at heart (nearly killed me catching a taxi to our accommodation in Hamburg the other night)
• Hamburg is a beautiful city. It helped that the sun was shining

And right now you will find me in Frankfurt (Main) Germany staying with a dear friend. Incredible.