Ok so I have now landed in Abu Dhabi and it is Tuesday….or at least I think it is…I don’t know I feel like I have been awake forever! (I will write this blog post partly now and partly later so if it sounds like I am jumping through tenses…I probably am…)

Getting off the plane seemed to take FOREVER!! And then going through security was even longer still!!

After that however it was ok I had just less than a couple of hours to kill before my next flight….urgh another 7 hour flight to go!! I cannot waittttt to land in Paris!!

I was sat next to a guy called Peter on the plane this time (I actually didn’t find out his name until we had collected our luggage but still…). Peter was nice he has come from Melbourne as well and was in Europe for a month so we spent some time exchanging travel stories etc before the usual attempt at watching films/sleeping begun!

Breakfast was quite nice actually! Scrambled egg with a bolognese and some chickpeas, served with fruit and bread etc. I tried to take advantage of all the free drinks when they came round, although I left it quite late in the journey to have a glass of red wine and by that point it was too late to get more! Damn! Ha! Before we landed they served what they said was a “chicken” sandwich…it was nice…but certainly not chicken. You know that super processed pink meat with olives running through it…ah yes that was the so called chicken! haha!

Finalllllyyyyyy it was touch down in Paris!!! I was exhausted! Peter and I headed to baggage collection and begun our long wait for our bags…after 15 minutes of waiting and talking about what our bags looked like, they ironically appeared one after the other! ha. So having grabbed them we both headed to the Metro station. My bag was sooo heavy I never get used to the feeling of it on my shoulders urgh!!

After a longgggg queue and what I’m pretty sure was an extortionate price for a one week travel card, we worked out we both had to get the same train too! ha! Funny how these things work out eh! So off we headed…lucky for Peter he had just the one train to take…I on the other hand had a second one to get and the walk from the line I was on to the next was sooooooo long!! I’m talking a 10 minute walk including escalators with 20/25kg of luggage on me! URGH! The guy sat opposite us on the first train actually needed the same train as me so we ended up walking there together and having a bit of a chat on my second train too!

I MADE IT!!! La Defense – Grande Arche! As I exited the station I could see Jacques waiting for me and as I threw the bags off my shoulders I was so so happy to have arrived and to see him again after so many months!!!

We headed back to his place with a couple of his friends in tow…first things first – SHOWER!! YESSS! It felt so good to be clean and fresh again after over 24 hours of travelling! The rest of the night has actually been spent with his mates who he invited over, we played cards for a while which was fun but after that we just sat around and they all just spoke French the entire time….between that and the sheer sleep deprivation I was under, I had had enough and said goodnight to everyone!

Well after my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower from the great view from Jacques balcony, I am now in bed finally and boyyyy does it feel good to lay down at last!!! I think I will sleep very well tonight!

One very exhausted traveller signing off!