The journey to Fontainebleau

It has been a long time since my last post. I will try to cover all that has happened since; mostly a lot of sitting and (until recently) not very much sleep! Josh and I left the Grampians on Wed 27 Feb and drove back to Adelaide to drop off everything that we would not be taking away with us. Though we were only home for 2 days it was great to have the chance to spend some quality time with my beloved pooch Copper and say au revoir to the family. On Friday mum, Josh and I drove to Melbourne. Travelling from Adelaide to Melbourne on Good Friday was always going to be quite to ordeal, factor in a closure to main highway between the two cities and a stop in the Grampians to pick up Josh's GoPro and soon the nine hour trip became a 13hour journey. Our Easter in Melbourne was lovely, we had amazing food with even more amazing people and our farewell drinks was one of my best nights out in a very long time! On the Monday night Dad took Josh, Addy, Mum and I out for some amazing Indian food and then the countdown to our trip really began....

One last play with my pooch

After playing Yatzee with Josh for an hour or so Mum came to pick me up to take me to the apartment where we were staying (just around the corner from Josh's Granny's house - very convenient - nice find mum!), one last check over my luggage and a last minute decision to pack a beanie and second jumper into my carry on and it was time to call it a night. Off to bed for a good night's sleep before our long journey to London. The sleep I sought was however illusive, and instead of resting  I watched my clock with nervous anticipation for most of the night. At 4:00am the alarm went off, its time to go! Mum and I picked Josh and his Granny up at 5:00am to go to the airport - our plane was set to depart at 10:00am to Beijing via Shanghai. After taking a strange route to the airport courtesy of mum's satnav, we raced to the checkin area to check our flight. What? Its is not on the board?! Hmm...that's strange. But wait, there is a flight at 1:30pm to Beijing with the same flight number, surely that could not be ours? Yes, yes it was ours and so began our 52 hours in transit. We met up with Josh's parents and my Dad for breakfast and the time for farewells was soon upon us, waving off my Mum and Dad and Josh's Granny - a tear free farewell! We were doing well! Josh's parents stayed with us until after we chacked in our bags as both were overweight and we were not sure they would be allowed. Luck was on our side, not only were our heavy bags accepted they also gave us a two $12 meal tokens to spend due to the delay to our flight. Free of our checked luggage we said farewell to Jeanette and Lynton and went through customs. The time until our flight passed quickly - aided by phad thai and sushi courtesy of Air China and we were soon boarding. The first leg of our journey was 11.5hours to Shanghai, during this time Josh and I watched three movies and managed about 2 hours sleep each.

When we arrived in Shanghai it was a bit of shambles, whist the announcements on our flight were in both Mandarin and English, the English was a bit difficult to understand, and by this I mean we couldn't understand anything! All we knew is that we had to pass through security and get to another gate and re-board the same plane and that our plane was set to depart in 30 minutes. Okay so we only have 30 minutes how hard could it be?! Quite! Through customs, hand in your departure card...wait, what? a departure card I wasn't sure that we had actually entered at this point!...somehow we managed to determine that the lady in the corner speaking only Mandarin was handing out new boarding passes which we would need to re-board our flight. Through security again, this time we were following a guy who thought a massive (lets say 80cm) hookah was an acceptable carry on item...apparently it was, with exception to the water inside! Eventually we found our new gate, yet again the flight was delayed and we were among the first there. The flight to Beijing was short, Josh managed to sleep for most of it and soon we were in Beijing.

When we landed in Beijing it was crazy! There was another flight to London Gatwick that connected with our flight that was delayed due to our late departure from Melbourne. Three buses waited for us on the tarmac and again the attendants directed us all in Mandarin only. We jumped on the bus to the right, not sure if it was the bus for the first flight to London, the flight to Frankfurt, or the second flight to London. Once aboard we were relived to hear people talking about London, win, we were on the right bus! We had a 12.5hour lay over in Beijing starting at 12:30am. For the third time we passed through security and customs, this time less seamlessly, Josh with a lighter and a laptop he forgot to get out and me with a full drink bottle. Again with the exit cards...I dont actually think I handed in an entry card while we were in China haha. Forgetting where we were we decided to use the airport wifi to check our emails, facebooks and call home (our cells had no reception in China)...sounds easy right...not in China. Getting internet access involved scanning your passport at a self-serve kiosk, I was WAY too tired to figure out this process! Eventually Josh worked it out and we had internet, YAY! We found a quite place to use the internet and skyped mum (soon after I learnt that Skype is actually illegal in China oops!). Facebook and our blog sites were blocked due to China's internet censorship and so we soon gave up. The airport was freezing overnight, about 3degrees, but we were lucky that we had Josh's sleeping bag in our carry on :) win! I set up camp with Josh's sleeping bag and managed to get another 2hours sleep while Josh watch some movies soon we swapped out and Josh had about 1.5hours sleep. Breakfast time!!! We wandered through the airport exploring the duty free shops and found our departure gate for later on, then we found some breakfast! The food was AMAZING! Josh had a curry set and I had a chilli rice noodle set! We headed back to our departure gate for some Yatzee and people watching. I had another hour or so sleep and soon it was time to board our final flight....

Our final flight would be 11.5hours to London. Once boarded we noticed that this plane did not have individual TV screens, later we would work out that the only movies they would play would be in Mandarin and the tiny subtitles were illegible even for those who had not only had 8 hours sleep in the last three days haha. All was not lost though, we had a row of four seats to ourselves and I managed, thanks to Josh, to get about 3 hours sleep on the flight, Josh got about 1.5 hours. We were soon making our decent into London and our excitement that we would soon be at our destination gave us all the energy we needed. Off to security and customs for the fourth time. Another slight oversight, I had not written Helen's address anywhere and needed to get onto facebook to find it, the flat phone battery did not help either. No problem, I found a power outlet in the bathroom, completed our entry cards and we were on our way. On our way that is to a GIGANTIC line. Thankfully the line through customs moved quickly due to the large number of desks that were open and we soon found ourselves on the other side, in English territories and made our way to the baggage carousel. We were excited that because we had taken so long to get through customs we would not have to wait for our bags as they should have all been unloaded by this stage. We were correct, they had all been unloaded. We were incorrect that this would mean that we would not have to wait long for our bags. We walked up to the baggage carousel, by this point it had stopped moving and all of the remaining bags were on the ground, we searched for ours but could not find them - after a short chat to the baggage handlers we found out that our bags were in Gatwick, they had been sent with the first flight from Beijing to London and we would be without them until tomorrow when their courier dropped them to our chosen location. Thank goodness for the extra jumper and beanie I packed in my carry on at the last minute!

Oh well, we were in London and I was less than an hour away from seeing some of my very best friends, delayed receipt of my luggage would not dull my mood! We made our way into Leicester Sqr to meet Leanne and Helen for a drink! Words can not convey how great it was to see them! Helen being the amazing girl she is greeted us at her bar with food platters and Champagne and suddenly we were no longer tired! After a great couple of hours we called it a night and went back to Helens for a couple of bottles of wine. At 4:00am we turned in, Josh and I both excited by how perfect a start to our trip the night had been.

The next morning we were up at 9:00am to call the courier and arrange to have our bags dropped at Helen's bar so that we didnt need to spend the whole day waiting for our bags at home. While we were getting ready we looked outside the window and were delighted to see that it was snowing! We met up with Leanne early in the afternoon and went to pick up Josh's Moon Saturn crash pad and then headed back into the city to explore.

Josh navigating the London Tube with his crash pad!

After a quick stop at Trafalgar Sqr we decided that 1. It was too cold for sight seeing and 2. The pad was too massive to carry around central London whilst sightseeing haha! Leanne took us to an amazing Mexican restaurant for lunch and the spicy, hot, food was exactly what we needed. After lunch we made our way back to Helen's bar to wait for our packs. A couple of hours later and a small altercation between Josh and the douche courier it was 9:00pm and we had a packs and were making our way back to Helen's. I cooked pasta for Leanne, Helen and Josh and again the hours were passed eating, drinking and enjoying amazing company...ooops it was 3:40am again!!!

With my bestie!!!

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We decided that we would have a quite day at Helen's place on the Friday, our bus to Paris was leaving at 9:30pm. We woke up in time to say bye to Helen and then cooked a tasty breakfast, re-packed our bags ready to carry them around London and Paris and then made our way into the city again. Leanne the absolute legend helped us to carry our bags and MASSIVE pad throughout London and by 6pm we were at the bus station. After a little more time enjoying time together it was time to say c'ya to Leanne. (I cannot wait to get back to England again to spend more time with my fabulous friends there, thank you Leanne and Helen for making our first stop incredible!). We were soon on the bus and I think I was asleep before it left the station. We caught the bus to Dover and then boarded the ferry, it was quite amusing watching other passengers turning varying shades of grey and green from seasickness. Once back on board the bus it was only another 4 hours to Paris, Josh and I slept most of the way, and at 6:00am we arrived in Paris. We collected our bags and made our way to Gare de Lyon station, from where we would collect our hire car. Once we found Hertz we sat down to enjoy a couple of delicious coffees (or in my case hot chocolates).

Gare de Lyon - Paris

Soon, thanks to Josh's French speaking skills, we had the keys to our car and were making our way down to the car park. When we arrived at the car spot written on our Hertz package I had a minor panic attack as I looked upon the tiny, tiny, smart car that was in the spot!!! No surely I hadnt ordered us a SMART CAR!!! Not even one of our packs, let alone the pad will fit in that! With a quick check of the registration number our fears were ended and we found our perfectly sized car in the next spot over. We loaded up the car and Josh took the lead for the next stage of our adventure...driving on the right side of the road, shifting gears with the right hand and driving through Paris!!! Better him than me! He did an AMAZING job and within the hour we arrived at Fontainebleau.

After a quick stop at the grocery store we made our way to Bois-le-Roi, a neighbouring town where we would be staying. Finding our Gite was a little tricky, due to me writing the wrong address on our itinerary. But with the help of a lovely French family and their internet we soon had the right address and were at our beautiful little Gite! A quick call home and some dinner and it was time for bed. By this stage we had been travelling for almost 7 days and had had about 12 hours sleep each, I was full of a cold (that is an understatement for the last few days my body has become a snot factory...pretty gross actually). On our first full day in Fontainebleau, Sunday, Josh went out for a little climb to see the areas and test out his awesome new pad...I don't remember much from this day having slept most of it. For the past three days I have slept and taken cold and flu tablets and today for the first time I woke up feeling human!!! Suffering slight cabin fever we went on a little adventure to town and had a look at Chateau Fontainebleau, ate pastries and had a quick look at one of the climbing areas.

Josh pretty happy to be eating a Pain au Chocolat

Chateau Fontainebleau

Now I am feeling MUCH better and I feel finally that we have ARRIVED!!! Let the holiday begin!!!