See Ya Later Australia!

The big French day had come! We said goodbye to Warwick and our dog Harry at ten in the morning and had a long, tense drive to the Brisbane airport. My mum and I were both nervous about the trip and what we had forgotten to pack (Vegemite being the biggest disappointment). I had a subway at the airport before we got on the plane which was lucky, because the food on the airplane was disgusting. Except, I did get chocolate with my kid's meal, which my mum kept trying to pinch.


We had a stopover in Singapore, which is 8hrs from Brisbane. Singapore, interestingly, is a city, a country and an island. It is at the bottom tip of Malaysia and is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Luckily, there were lots of movies, tv shows and games to play on the plane, so the time flew a little, but it was still gueulling. Obviously, being stuck on a plane for that long is uncomforable and it's nearly impossible to sleep, but the biggest challenge was using the bathroom. It's tiny, with buttons and levers sticking out everywhere. I only mastered it after 20 hours in the air. But Mum washed her hands with mouthwash and I forgot to lock my door once, and an old granny came in with me in there. But the Singapore airport was enormous and we had plenty to look at in the 3 hrs we had to wait, including having hot chocolates and massages.


The second half of the trip, to Paris, took just over 13hrs. We finally boarded the 2nd plane at 11pm, which was 1am Australian time. I had been awake for 18 hrs, so quickly fell asleep for about half an hour after taking off. But the rest of time I found it difficult to sleep and filled in time by watching How I Met Your Mother episodes, Jumanji and The Simpsons. Luckily we were sitting next to the nicest person on the plane, Llewellyn, an eye-surgeon, who would kindly always smile as he jumped up to let us get by saying it was a good chance to stretch his legs.

This time we were on an A380 Airbus - the biggest passenger carrier in the world. The Airbus A380 is a double-decker plane and carries nearly 800 people. It made its first flight on 27 April 2005 from Toulouse, France (where I have been and went to the Space Parc). And made its first commercial flight on 25 October 2007 from Singapore to Sydney with Singapore Airlines (the airline we went with).

This is the A380 Airbus from outside.


This is a suite onboard. We didn't stay there.


This is first class. We didn't sit there either.


This is economy where we did sit.


Something else interesting about the A380 is that the toilet flushes at 210km/hr! Now that would be a pretty cool ride.