Farewell Barcelona and Europe!

Collecting our bags from the apartment at 2pm, we had 8 hours to kill before our flight left. With 100kgs of luggage we were rather restricted with activity choice. We began by eating a late lunch at the cafe conveniently located at the bottom of our apartment building!

Finishing that we lugged our gear to the airport bus stop which very conveniently left from Placa d'Espanga a short 300m walk. We were slightly nervous about this part of the journey but it was extremely easy hauling our luggage onboard for the 25min ride to Terminal 1.

As luck had it, the drop off point, had us entering the departure area in front of the Qatar check-in counter that was open (for an earlier flight) and the lovely lady on checkin allowed us to check in early! We were so happy to be rid of the bags especially the ski bag!

Now we had 6 hours left before boarding - enough time to explore the airport! Making our way through security, we headed for section E where our plane was departing. It was here we made the unfortunate decision to go through passport control not realising that we would be unable to access the bottom floor of the airport (where the majority of the shops were!) Instead we had a newsagent, two duty free shops, a cafe (it closed early) and Burger King to keep us entertained!!

The hours ticked by and everyone managed to keep mostly busy and happy but we were glad to finally board the plane at 10pm! Our first leg was 6hrs to Doha. We had stressed to the girls that it would be good to get a few hours of sleep as there would be loads of time on the next 14hr flight to Sydney for movies and entertainment. Of course who listens to their parents? Katy managed 2hrs while for Ella it was just 1hr!

In Doha, we had a few hours wait. The flight to Sydney was long. Andy, Katy and I all managed 5-6 hrs of broken sleep while Ella continued to resist the temptation....but finally succumbed to an hour of so before we landed!

Our flight continued on to Canberra after a 2hr transit with only 25 people aboard the plane! We touched down on time at 10.30am and were all so glad to be in Canberra. It was fantastic to see Nana and Grandpa at the airport and Pippa at home.

The rest of the day we unpacked, revelled in being home and in our own space. We met up with Al, Rob & girls plus Jase & girls at Little Oink for coffee in an attempt to keep awake. Ella was first to crash at 4.30pm sleeping for 13 hrs, Katy made it to dinner (just) and slept for 15 hrs! We thought that we'd perfected avoiding jet lag but as we found out it wasn't the case!