Priit had ordered me a shuttle transfer from Maroochydore to Brisbane airport as it did not make sense for him to take a full day off work just to send me off to the airport. Due to the shuttle leaving times, I was going to be at the airport 3 hours early. Priit was sure the extra time was necessary, and it turned out he was right.
When I got to the airport, I went straight to the Etihad Airways counter to drop off my luggage as I wanted some extra time in the airport tourist shops to look for some souvenirs. My suitcase was 23 kg, exactly the same weight as it had been on my flight over. I was relieved that it wasn't any heavier until the check-in girl said that although they accept suitcases up to 30 kg with no extra charge, as I had connecting flights with other airlines (Turkish and Air Baltic) which only allowed 20 kg, I would either have to re-pack making the suitcase lighter or I would have to pay for the excess luggage. She added up the different charges by other airlines and it came to $84 AUD per kilo (a total of $252 AUD for the 3 extra kilos). I tried to explain that I had done exactly the same route with the same airlines on my way to Australia with exactly the same weight suitcase with no problems, but she refused to budge. The only thing she could do for me was to check my luggage to Abu Dhabi only, where I would have to go and pick it up and then see if Turkish Airlines would allow me to check in 23 kg without paying the excess. For various reasons, which you know or might guess, the last thing I wanted to do was to leave the transfer zone in Abu Dhabi.
Since the check-in girl also weighed my hand luggage and told me that was 3 kilos overweight as well, she said I could not put the extra 3 kilos into my hand luggage, but had to find another way of redistributing the weight. I felt helpless as I had nobody to leave anything with, and I did not want to throw away any of the things I had in my suitcase, not least the giant jar of Vegemite that Priit had sent to Joel (and Vero and Emily).
When travelling in cold northern climate, I have been able to put on several layers of clothing to try to make the suitcase lighter. However, I had no thick heavy clothing in my suitcase; everything was light summer stuff. I was stumped at how I was going to reduce the weight.
Then I remembered that liquids weigh a lot. There was no way I was going to leave any of my bottles of wine that I had packed, but I could empty the shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and nail polish remover bottles. Then I changed into a long dress that I had bought, and put leggings and shorts under it, two layers of short sleeved cardigans on top, tights, socks, trainers, my light winter coat, the pockets of which I filled with laptop cables, the bag of carry-on liquids, and some other heavier things from my carry-on bag. In the end, I thought that I had taken enough things out of my suitcase for it to pass.
After queueing up again, I was directed to another check-in girl, who allowed the 21 kg of my suitcase to pass. The hold luggage was ticketed all the way to Tallinn. I was relieved that I could finally go through security, as I wanted to go and change out of my many layers of clothes. My carry-on bag was going to weigh a ton with all the extra clothes there, but that did not matter once I got to the plane.
Going through the security, I was pulled aside for explosives tests. I guess it was due to my multiple layers of clothes that looked really unnatural. They checked my bag and clothing for traces of explosives and patted me down to make sure I did not have a bomb belt on me.
When I was done with security and border, I barely had time to use the facilities to take off the excess clothes and pack them into my carry-on. The flight to Abu Dhabi was called and I had no time to go round any shops. I was glad then that I had taken the early shuttle, as the full 3 hours had been used up.
On the way from Abu Dhabi to Melbourne, the plane did not have to make any extra stops anywhere, as we were flying against the way the Earth turns. This made the distance the plane had to cover shorter. On the way back, we were flying the same direction the Earth turns making the distance the plane has to cover longer. As I understand, the amount of fuel a plane could carry would have been just about enough for a direct flight, but it would not have left any room for any unforeseen circumstances. So, just to be safe, on the way out of Australia, there is usually a short re-fuelling stop somwhere in Asia. This flight took us to Singapore for an hour.
During the whole trip, I was lucky with the people I sat next to on the plane. They were all really pleasant people who made the flights pass quicker. On my way over, I had sat next to a Greek girl, now there was a middle-aged Englishman next to me for the Brisbane-Singapore-Abu Dhabi part of my travel. He had been to Australia for two months, visiting his daughter. Time te passed quickly when we chatted now and again between sleeping and watching films. We also had a coffee together in Singapore. It was actually good to break up the 15-hour-long journey into two seven-and-a-half hour parts with a chance to get out of the plane and stretch your legs in between.
The Etihad Airways in-flight entertainment is really good. There were about 80 full-length feature films to choose from and 116 short programs from episodes of famous TV series to promotional travel programs about the Middle East and Asia. There were also quite a few computer games to keep you busy. It would have been easy flying with kids as there was enough for them to do for the entire journey.
In Abu Dhabi, I looked for my next connection and it meant walking 10 minutes to a different part of the terminal to find a transfer desk to get a boarding pass for the next flight. As I was looking for the correct transfer desk, I overheard another girl ask for the transfer desk for Turkish Airlines. I asked her if she was also flying to Istanbul and she was. We got talking and by the time we asked for new boarding passes, we also asked if we could get seats next to each other. She was an Australian going to Istanbul for a month to visit her Turkish boyfriend before returning to her au pair job in England.
The 5-hour flight from Abu Dhabi to Istanbul would not have been too bad if the air in the plane had not been too hot. Jodie and I kept taking turns to go back to the stewardesses and asking for some water to drink. One of the stewardesses took a disliking to us because of that and kept ignoring us when she walked past us. That was funny, as it meant that we had to go to the back more often to bother them to get water. But finally, that flight, too, was over.
I had a 9-hour wait planned at Istanbul airport. I sat and worked on my computer for a couple of those hours and read a book for another couple. I got to the gate to go to Riga on time, but we were not allowed on the plane until about 10 minutes before it was due to leave. I knew the flight was going to be late, but since I had an hour and a half between flights in Riga, I was not worried. I was rather tired and fell asleep as soon as I was on the plane. I woke up an hour later to discover that we were still standing at the departure gate. But as the plane started to move at that point, I was not worried. I knew that Riga airport was really small and that I would be able to run to any gate within a couple of minutes.
However, the plane did not take off. Looking out of the window I realised that we were waiting in a long queue of planes. Apparently, there was fog in Istanbul and all bar one of the runways were closed. The air traffic control used the same runway for landing and take off, which meant that once a plane had taken off, it had to be clear for some time before they allowed a plane to land there. This in turn had to turn off the runway before they allowed a departing plane to turn onto the runway to take off. So, we waited another hour there before we could take off. At that point it was clear that I was not going to make my connection to Tallinn.
I hoped that there was another flight the same evening that had free seats as I had no winter clothes with me. My Dad had taken me to the airport, and would come to pick me up, in order to reduce the amount of pointless kilos in terms of clothes I could not use while in Australia. I had already understood that I was not the only one who had missed the connecting flight to Tallinn coming from Istanbul. So, I rushed to the transfer desk when we landed. I met another Estonian girl, Jaana, there, and we both got our tickets for the same evening. We had a 4 hour wait, but that was made so much more pleasant by having somebody to talk to. As it turned out, the plane flying to Tallinn in the evening was the small Fokker 50 with 46 seats. We sat in the last two seats of the plane. I felt really lucky. :)
When we landed, the outside temperature was -20C (-4F), and as I was wearing shorts, I got some strange looks from the airport staff. My Dad was there to meet me and told me he had tried to heat my apartment, but that it would still be quite cold. He was right; the temperature in my flat was +12C (53.6F).
Can't wait to go back to Australia...
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