No worries mate

And we’re off. About 2 and a half day after leaving the frosty streets of the Netherlands, I found some time to give you all a first update on the incredible madness that currently is my life.
Monday evening, the day after a heavy last carnaval night, Carliene and I took off on our journey to the other side of the globe.
Dusseldorf – London
London – Singapore
Singapore – Sydney
and finally Sydney – Gold Coast. That was the plan, all in one straight 30 hour trip.

The journey went smoothly.. Too smoothly. At some point I figured this first blog update would become a very short one, because everything went so well.
The first part too London was a joke; as soon as the plane finally reached its target altitude of 32000 feet (10km) it could already start descending again. The next part was waiting for two hours in the international terminal of London Heathrow, which I thought was more a shopping mall than anything else. Finally we boarded the plane that would carry us the majority of the trip; the Boeing 747 Jumbo. Damn! I forgot how big that thing is! It is just unreal. It was crammed, totally filled up, but luckily we reserved our seats, so we had our places at the window.
Taking off with this huge machine was really impressive. Off we went, 12 hours straight to Singapore. As we approached the airport (18.00 local time) there was a funny gathering of all types of sea ships waiting, I guess, for a place to dock in the harbor of Singapore.
In contrast of what we expected we had to leave the plane in Singapore for an hour or so and actually that was just fine.
About half the people left and were replaced by, mainly, Asians. We took off again for a 7 hour flight to Sydney.
I had totally had it at that point with flying. Can flying get boring?? You bet it can! Especially if you, like me, are basically unable to sleep in a plane. I wanted to make whisky my friend that would get me through the night. Since there was no strong alcohol (probably only in the businessclass) I had to take comfort in wine. Beer was no option, because I would have pissed myself away.
Despite the alcohol I could just not – and I know that some dare to dispute that – catch sleep in an upright position. At best, I slept 15 minutes straight and about 2,5 hours in total. The custom entertainment system (I love it) was my savior in passing time. I must have watched at least 7 movies during the flights.
Wednesday morning we finally made it to Sydney. Carliene and I had agreed that as soon as we passed customs, we would just celebrate it as if we were at our final destination. After all, Sydney might not be Gold Coast, but it sure is Australia.
It felt very strange to realize we were really at the other side of the world after an exhausting trip. Exhausting, but like is said, very very smooth. We passed customs, where nobody asked us for a visa or whatsoever. We just had to hand in a card, that we had to fill in on the plane, with some basic data and then they just gave us one little boring stamp in our passport; in my case, on page 8. Why there? Not a clue.
We came at the customs where our hand luggage would be checked, or at least was supposed to be. They only asked if we handed in the card and then we were good to go, without having one glimpse at our bags. Paralyzed by amazement we proceeded and we left the gate and walked out of the terminal into the burning 7am-sun of Sydney. We made it, we celebrated and had some time to kill so sat in the sun. It was at this point that I thought there wouldn’t be much to write today.

All that changed when we took a bus to terminal 2, the terminal for domestic flights. It drove us over the highway around the airport. When we arrived to check-in for the last flight and mentioned something about our bags (the big checked-in bags, not hand luggage) being transferred, we were interrupted. Jetstar never transfers bags automatically from other flights… When departing from Dusseldorf we explicitly asked for that and they promised us everything would be fine and we would be happily reunited with our bags at Coolangatta Airport (Gold Coast).
Obviously we were stunned and speechless. We really were supposed to go back to the other terminal, figure out where we could find our bags, thfen return to terminal two to do a complete new check-in. There was a considerable chance we would never make it to our 10.00 flight, but if that were the case they could transfer us to the next – already at 14.00 – for free.
So off we went, back to the huge international terminal. We found the “lost bags office” were some guy gave us a speech about how we should have listened to the airport speakers, because they continuously make announcements about how everyone always has to collect his bags. Sorry dude, I just arrived in Australia for half a year, I don’t have the focus to listen to speakers now. After some walky-talky-talk he managed to find that our bags were at least in the terminal somewhere (already a relief that everything went fine in London and Singapore), but it would take a while before they were delivered.
Like usual I decided that also today the glass was half full, so we just accepted the fact we would probably miss that flight. Nono wait, make that: we just decided we were going to be chill and miss the flight instead of freaking out. We sat outside again, had a beer and made the best of it, just enjoying the still awkward feeling of being in Australia.
After a while we collected our bags, went back AGAIN to terminal 2, waited there some more until the check-in desk opened, checked-in (Carliene had to pay again a handsome fee for her extra bag) and finally took our flight northwards to Coolangatta Airport.
This flight was just pure fun and excitement and only took little over an hour. I spent my time watching the coastline as we flew over it and realized that I would soon set foot in the city I would spend the next 5 months in. I was the happiest boy in the plane.. Definitely happier that the stupid crybaby in the front of the plane, who apparently had enough air to entertain us the full flight with his adorable voice. Anyway, we made it and Carliene and I jumped around like little kids.

Now we only needed to find our bags again and take a taxi. At that point, in the bag collection area, we saw a guy – like many others – with a piece of paper with a name on it, guiding people he was supposed to pick. His paper said Griffith Airport Pick-up… It was our university’s pick-up service!! We never applied for that, but still we asked him if he had some spare places.
He was willing to take us to our hostel, but we would be dropped off last.. AND it would cost us 30 dollars each, later reduced to 50 for the both of us. I knew the pick-up service was supposed to be free, so he probably put the money in his own pocket. I couldn’t care less. A cab would probably have been more expensive, plus he gave us an awesome sightseeing tour through Gold Coast while he had to drop off some other student all at different locations. Veeery cool.
Finally we arrived at our hostell, at least we hoped we could call it that. Actually our booking was never confirmed, so it would still be a surprise if there was any place for us. But it all came through perfectly (they were probably just too lazy to react) and we could move into our room for the next 5 days. We spent the evening exploring the beach and having some drinks. At 23.30 local time we went to sleep and finally, after 3 days of not sleeping I got a well deserved nights rest. The strangest about all this, is that I really don’t have a clue why everybody makes such a big fuzz about jetlags. I don’t get it. I felt perfect the whole day yesterday, slept like a baby last night and woke up this morning reborn and ready to blog
We had breakfast, took a little morning hike on the beach and, well, now we’re here.  This day will bring a lot of beach time, probably a little sunburn and a visit to the highest building of Gold Coast which happens to be just a block away from the hostel.. Mwuaha, lucky us…

In the end the whole journey turned out to be a bit more chaotic and unexpected than it appeared initially. But, as usual everything ended up just perfectly fine
No worries mate! Cheers!

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