Kuala Lumpur - Sydney

We both had showers at KL airport, in order to try and feel slightly human again.

This was the plane that we flew on from KL to Sydney. It was absolutely packed. KL must have been the change point for people flying from India, as the plane was full of Indians. There were too many families with babies for the number of cots, and many families split between rows, so there was a lot of manoeuvring. The cabin crew didn't seem to care that people were slightly upset. We were seated in two seats at the edge of a 5-seats-across-the-middle section. We had a young mum and with her young toddler on her lap, slap-bang in the middle of the five seats, so we swapped with her so she could at least be on the edge and free to get up if her daughter got too squirmy. She had actually booked a cot but had been told "Sorry, there's none left." But the little girl did very well (our son wouldn't have!), though I am sure that the mother was willing the flight to end from the very start!

It was quite late when we got in, and Tim's father picked us up and we stayed the night at Tim's parent's, ready to see our son in the morning when he woke up. It was interesting to see his reaction to us - a good deal of caution, but he warmed up pretty quickly. It was great to see him and nice to be home.

We loved our trip to Germany, and hope to go again (Tim definitely will need to for his PhD research). And I think Ursula would be very upset if we didn't bring the kids next time!

Sydney - Kuala Lumpur

On December 27, 2005, my husband, Tim, and I went on a trip to Germany for three weeks, partly for a holiday, and partly for research purposes, for Tim, who is doing a PhD that deals with Roman history in Germany. We were originally going to take our (then) 2 year old son, but my parents-in-law offered to have him, and instead of me having constant worries about taking a 2 year old on a plane and to places he hadn't been before (foreign beds, strange food), we decided this was a good alternative. We missed greatly him though, and will probably never forgive ourselves for the fact that he had his second birthday while we were away.

Oh, and Tim's German language is quite good, and mine is virtually non-existent. Though I can order a small fries and a hot chocolate, if pressed. Not a balanced diet by any means though!

Here's a photo of the plane we flew on from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur. We took this for the benefit of our son who is a bit of a plane buff.


We left Sydney at about 3:40pm. I had a vacant seat next to me, which we thought might have once been our son's, before we decided not to take him. It was a reasonable flight, though I didn't manage to get any sleep, as it was still light outside. We arrived at KL at about 9pm their time, and wandered around to find something to eat - we settled on Burger King, which was hideous, and then Tim found a place to have a shower for 25 Ringgit (currently about $AUD8 - I think he would have felt it was worth it whatever the cost!). Then we sat down, and I managed to sleep for about half an hour, which made me feel much more human. After wandering for a while longer, we boarded our next flight, to leave at 12:10am on Dec 28.