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!

Frankfurt - Kuala Lumpur

We woke up in the morning to a magical surprise - it had snowed overnight - on our last night in Germany!

Here's what the view out our hotel window looked like the day before:

Here's what it looked like the morning after (yes it was pretty early, but the snow ploughs had already been through clearing roads and paths):

We packed up and caught a taxi to the airport. We weren't sure how much snow would ground planes, so were half prepared to not go anywhere, but thankfully it wasn't blizzardous, so the planes were still flying. Breakfast was McDonalds - classy.

Once we were on the plane they used a high pressure hose filled with something to hose down the aeroplane's wings so it was safe to take off. The whole time we were thinking how much our son would love to see that!

The trip to Kuala Lumpur was pretty much like any flight. Food average, not much sleep, wishing we were finally home...

Kuala Lumpur - Frankfurt - Mainz

The flight from KL was a much smaller plane, and to our great delight there were only about 40 people on the plane. Once we had taken off we were able to spread out and I was able to sleep lying along 4 seats. There was no one travelling in business class, and only one person in 1st class.

I watched movies, and slept in between, for about 5 hours in total - arguably the most and best sleep I have ever had on a plane!

We arrived in Frankfurt just before dawn at about 6:30am, where it was snowing as we landed. There were great long lines of snow ploughs along the outer tarmacs, all with orange blinking lights on. We managed to clear customs without actually picking up our luggage (a number of people did this, still not sure how!) We then had to find someone to let us back in to pick up our luggage, and then waited in a queue for ages for "Nothing to Declare", while passengers had their bags quite thoroughly searched. Because of our mishap with the luggage, we were almost the last in the queue, even behind the cabin crew. When we finally got to the check I hauled my bag onto the counter, and I was asked if I spoke Deutsch, to which I replied no. I was then asked where I had come from, and once we said "Australia" they said "that's ok, you can go." We still don't really understand why - perhaps Australian customs has a pretty tough reputation?!

We found the car hire place, where we requested winter tyres for our car. As the original car we had hired didn't have them (an Opel Astra), we fluked an upgrade to a Mercedes C Class!

When we got to the car we sat in it for quite a while, trying to find the hand brake, headlights, windscreen wipers etc. Once Tim finally got up the courage to drive (I decided I wouldn't drive - not confident enough to negotiate the wrong side of the road, from the wrong side of the vehicle!) we set out, with Tim finding it difficult to get used to positioning the car in the middle of the lane, rather than almost driving me up the gutter! Thankfully by this time it had stopped snowing (Welcome to Germany, please drive on the left hand side of the road, whilst negotiating snow falling in your face - aaaarrghhh!). After a few wrong turns, and a few short excursions onto the incorrect side of the road (oops!) we finally made it onto a dual carriage way, taking us in the direction of Mainz.

Some building in Mainz - it looks nice, and shows you it is cold and snowy!

We got a bit confused about which turn off to take - there seemed to be an awful lot of turn-off signs starting with "Mainz" but eventually we worked out that these were for suburbs of Mainz. We finally got into Mainz proper, and then realised we had no idea where the Youth Hostel was, so eventually found a place to pull over, to locate the address, which we had helpfully put in the boot. Unfortunately that didn't help, and neither did our Lonely Planet guide which only had a map with an arrow pointing off the side of the page with "YHA → 2km". After missing turn offs many times, not seeing lanes clearly because of the snow, and almost going around a roundabout the wrong way we finally ended up 2km away from the YHA, but still none-the-wiser as to where it was. After stopping at a petrol station to ask, we discovered it was just down the road, around the corner. We finally got there at 10:20am.

As it was a very stressful drive for Tim, we decided that we would go for a walk, though I had a shower first to freshen up, and briefly thought I had left my wallet on the plane (though it was eventually found in the car - phew!)

We walked through a park beside the youth hostel, where there were lots of families with young kids, tobogganing down slopes. We discovered that our shoes didn't have very ice-friendly soles, and spent a lot of time almost slipping over. We walked and walked and eventually ended up in the main shopping area, with pedestrian malls and cobbled streets. The sales were on, so we bought a new beanie to better cover Tim's ears. We also bought bratwurst on rolls for lunch (a common lunch option in Germany, from street stalls). We got lost walking back to the youth hostel, though eventually found our way.

The slippery park, devoid of tobogganing families.

We filled in time until dinner, which bore absolutely no resemblance to the weekly menu stated meal, and was accompanied by raspberry tea (great to tone our uteruses with!). Early to bed - jetlag.

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.