Home Is Where The Heart Is
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Stephanie
16 Januari 2014 | Verenigde Arabische Emiraten, Abu Dhabi
''Honey, we're home''.
Looking back, the last week went extremely fast and at the same time almost unbearably slow. Due to some events last weekend, we decided to leave as soon as possible.
It was a pretty tough decision since we had multiple things planned for the last couple of weeks. We have also made a lot of new friends and it is always hard to leave people behind.
On Sunday we started looking for flight possibilities. Unfortunately it is not that easy booking a flight from India to Amsterdam so we ended up with a 36-hour flight, 6-hour bus trip, - or so we thougt.
Monday morning our alarm went off at 7AM and we finished packing and cleaning the apartment. Some of our neighbors came in and with promises of writing them, we said our final goodbyes.
Using a TukTuk to get to the Central Bus Station we finally left Trichy at 9:30AM with the bus to Chennai. There were no official bus stops along the way but we stopped multiple times to have a break. Guys could just stand in a line outside the bus and have some bonding time while peeing next to eachother.
Finally at 4PM we got off the bus thinking we would just grab a cab to get to the hotel, but when we showed the address they told us it is a 1,5-hour drive. With no other alternative we took another TukTuk to our hotel. He shortchanged us with the price and distance, but 'Karma is a b*tch' and he took us the wrong way. When we arrived at the wrong hotel he was really pissed and started smacking the steering wheel. At that point we didn't care about the extra traveling time. Our driver thought he could just earn a few rupees more than normal but in the end he had to put in some extra effort - and time and gas. Sakka!
Arriving at our hotel we were exhausted and turned in for an early night.
Tuesday we had to check out at 2pm so we took our last swim at the hotel pool, surrounded by palm trees, and left for the Chennai Beach, which borders to the Bengal Bay. Compared to the city it is perfectly peaceful. Just hearing the wind, the water and nothing else, it was really nice to distance ourselves from the noises.
We left for the airport at 5PM, thinking we could just go inside, go to a restaurant and occupy ourselves with music and movies. Think again. We could only enter the airport three hours before our flight. (Which was scheduled to leave at 5am) We then went to the only cafe open and ordered a drink, took our laptop out and watched a movie. We ordered some food and Bhavvik's dosa got delivered straight away. After 20 minutes or so the waiter came and asked whether we liked it, while I had not even received my food yet. When telling that, he told us 'Oh yeah, sorry, it is not available' following that with saying we really had to go since we were there for too long. By that time it was not even 11PM so there were still 6 hours before our flight.
Trying to check in another time we finally were able to enter the airport at 12PM.. Exhausted as I was, I slept one hour on the ground, with one eye half open. We checked in at 2am and while waiting we noticed that our flight was already delayed for an hour which ended up being almost two hours. By the time we could actually board it was 6AM and we had been traveling for almost 48 hours with little- to no sleep.
Luckily in the air everything went according to plan and we arrived at Abu Dhabi International Airport 4 hours later, at 11AM. Exiting the plane we had to go to a passport controle post. Since our next flight wouldn't leave until 1AM that night we asked if we could leave the airport and visit Abu Dhabi. The guy behind the post looked at us a bit weird and didn't know the answer so he asked a lady what to do with us.
She looked at our data and then everything went really fast. She told us we could stay in a hotel. That we would have free lunch and dinner. That there would be a chauffeur who would drive us there and pick us back up. We were flabbergasted. (This may be my favourite English word).
I felt like we were on a tv-show like Candid Camera or 'Bananasplit', that someone would show up from behind a curtain and yell 'Ha, kidding!'.
We decided to not say anything and just go with it. Our hotel was a 5 star hotel with three swimming pools and only rich business men and women. Everybody was dressed in a suit and there we were, some students wearing jeans and a tshirt. Unbelievable. Our room had sea-sight view, and we looked over a golfcourse. (My dad would have called this 'Heaven')
We refreshed ourselves and took the hotel shuttle bus to the city. The buildings were amazing. There were so many skyscrapers that you could not even see the top if you looked out of the window. The bus dropped us at the Marina Mall, which is one of the biggest in the world. You will only find the most expensive brands you could think of. It was quite an adjustement, coming from one of the poorest places in the world, to here.
We left the mall with a cab to visit the Emirates Palace.We wanted to negotiate the price - since that's what we were used to do in Tiruchirappalli - but here the cab has a meter which actually works.
Anyways, the palace is a beautiful hotel attached to a private beach and the second most expensive hotel ever build for almost 6 billion USD. It has lots of fountains in the front and combined with the sun it made a spectacular view.
From there we were also able to see the Etihad Towers, which are 5 towers with the highest being over 300m in the air, they are just enormous and you feel really small looking at it.
To finish our little sightseeing tour we went to the Sheikh El Zayed Mosque.
This mosque is one of the most beautiful things I've seen so far. What made it even better was the sunset coming with it. The view was breathtaking.
We ended this amazing, unreal day enjoying a luxurious dinner and watching the Abu Dhabi skyline.
Our next flight luckily left on time and we arrived in Paris 8AM Thursday morning. It felt sooo good to have European ground under my feet! I was even happy to watch the grey sky and hear the raindrops.
Our flight to Brussels would leave in an hour or two, so we thought, but we were suprised to find out that our next way of transport was not an airplane but a train! (You should have seen our faces) So okay, what's another 300+ km's, we thought, and went to the exit to pick up our luggage. And when you think you have hit rock bottom, we discovered that our luggage skipped Paris and nobody knew where it was.
So off we went, to the trainstation, without our luggage.
Since we left from India in a rush, and my wallet had been stolen (with my SIM-card in it) we only had our Indian SIM-card, with about 10 rupees balance. And yes, 10 rupees is not enough to make a call in Europe. Through wifi, which only consisted of 1 min actual internet time, I was able to send an email to my parents that we would arrive at the trainstation instead of the airport, and that they could call me since I would not be able to reach them.
Ofcourse, 4-hours or so later, my mom send me a text: 'Are you still at the platform?', since the trainstation was pretty big and I wasn't able to spot them the first few moments.
And then, like a movie, I saw the blond curls of my eldest niece and was never happier than that moment I could finally give my parents and my niece a big hug, after being away from them for 8 weeks.
'Home Sweet Home' being the only thought lingering in my mind.
Looking back, the last week went extremely fast and at the same time almost unbearably slow. Due to some events last weekend, we decided to leave as soon as possible.
It was a pretty tough decision since we had multiple things planned for the last couple of weeks. We have also made a lot of new friends and it is always hard to leave people behind.
On Sunday we started looking for flight possibilities. Unfortunately it is not that easy booking a flight from India to Amsterdam so we ended up with a 36-hour flight, 6-hour bus trip, - or so we thougt.
Monday morning our alarm went off at 7AM and we finished packing and cleaning the apartment. Some of our neighbors came in and with promises of writing them, we said our final goodbyes.
Using a TukTuk to get to the Central Bus Station we finally left Trichy at 9:30AM with the bus to Chennai. There were no official bus stops along the way but we stopped multiple times to have a break. Guys could just stand in a line outside the bus and have some bonding time while peeing next to eachother.
Finally at 4PM we got off the bus thinking we would just grab a cab to get to the hotel, but when we showed the address they told us it is a 1,5-hour drive. With no other alternative we took another TukTuk to our hotel. He shortchanged us with the price and distance, but 'Karma is a b*tch' and he took us the wrong way. When we arrived at the wrong hotel he was really pissed and started smacking the steering wheel. At that point we didn't care about the extra traveling time. Our driver thought he could just earn a few rupees more than normal but in the end he had to put in some extra effort - and time and gas. Sakka!
Arriving at our hotel we were exhausted and turned in for an early night.
Tuesday we had to check out at 2pm so we took our last swim at the hotel pool, surrounded by palm trees, and left for the Chennai Beach, which borders to the Bengal Bay. Compared to the city it is perfectly peaceful. Just hearing the wind, the water and nothing else, it was really nice to distance ourselves from the noises.
We left for the airport at 5PM, thinking we could just go inside, go to a restaurant and occupy ourselves with music and movies. Think again. We could only enter the airport three hours before our flight. (Which was scheduled to leave at 5am) We then went to the only cafe open and ordered a drink, took our laptop out and watched a movie. We ordered some food and Bhavvik's dosa got delivered straight away. After 20 minutes or so the waiter came and asked whether we liked it, while I had not even received my food yet. When telling that, he told us 'Oh yeah, sorry, it is not available' following that with saying we really had to go since we were there for too long. By that time it was not even 11PM so there were still 6 hours before our flight.
Trying to check in another time we finally were able to enter the airport at 12PM.. Exhausted as I was, I slept one hour on the ground, with one eye half open. We checked in at 2am and while waiting we noticed that our flight was already delayed for an hour which ended up being almost two hours. By the time we could actually board it was 6AM and we had been traveling for almost 48 hours with little- to no sleep.
Luckily in the air everything went according to plan and we arrived at Abu Dhabi International Airport 4 hours later, at 11AM. Exiting the plane we had to go to a passport controle post. Since our next flight wouldn't leave until 1AM that night we asked if we could leave the airport and visit Abu Dhabi. The guy behind the post looked at us a bit weird and didn't know the answer so he asked a lady what to do with us.
She looked at our data and then everything went really fast. She told us we could stay in a hotel. That we would have free lunch and dinner. That there would be a chauffeur who would drive us there and pick us back up. We were flabbergasted. (This may be my favourite English word).
I felt like we were on a tv-show like Candid Camera or 'Bananasplit', that someone would show up from behind a curtain and yell 'Ha, kidding!'.
We decided to not say anything and just go with it. Our hotel was a 5 star hotel with three swimming pools and only rich business men and women. Everybody was dressed in a suit and there we were, some students wearing jeans and a tshirt. Unbelievable. Our room had sea-sight view, and we looked over a golfcourse. (My dad would have called this 'Heaven')
We refreshed ourselves and took the hotel shuttle bus to the city. The buildings were amazing. There were so many skyscrapers that you could not even see the top if you looked out of the window. The bus dropped us at the Marina Mall, which is one of the biggest in the world. You will only find the most expensive brands you could think of. It was quite an adjustement, coming from one of the poorest places in the world, to here.
We left the mall with a cab to visit the Emirates Palace.We wanted to negotiate the price - since that's what we were used to do in Tiruchirappalli - but here the cab has a meter which actually works.
Anyways, the palace is a beautiful hotel attached to a private beach and the second most expensive hotel ever build for almost 6 billion USD. It has lots of fountains in the front and combined with the sun it made a spectacular view.
From there we were also able to see the Etihad Towers, which are 5 towers with the highest being over 300m in the air, they are just enormous and you feel really small looking at it.
To finish our little sightseeing tour we went to the Sheikh El Zayed Mosque.
This mosque is one of the most beautiful things I've seen so far. What made it even better was the sunset coming with it. The view was breathtaking.
We ended this amazing, unreal day enjoying a luxurious dinner and watching the Abu Dhabi skyline.
Our next flight luckily left on time and we arrived in Paris 8AM Thursday morning. It felt sooo good to have European ground under my feet! I was even happy to watch the grey sky and hear the raindrops.
Our flight to Brussels would leave in an hour or two, so we thought, but we were suprised to find out that our next way of transport was not an airplane but a train! (You should have seen our faces) So okay, what's another 300+ km's, we thought, and went to the exit to pick up our luggage. And when you think you have hit rock bottom, we discovered that our luggage skipped Paris and nobody knew where it was.
So off we went, to the trainstation, without our luggage.
Since we left from India in a rush, and my wallet had been stolen (with my SIM-card in it) we only had our Indian SIM-card, with about 10 rupees balance. And yes, 10 rupees is not enough to make a call in Europe. Through wifi, which only consisted of 1 min actual internet time, I was able to send an email to my parents that we would arrive at the trainstation instead of the airport, and that they could call me since I would not be able to reach them.
Ofcourse, 4-hours or so later, my mom send me a text: 'Are you still at the platform?', since the trainstation was pretty big and I wasn't able to spot them the first few moments.
And then, like a movie, I saw the blond curls of my eldest niece and was never happier than that moment I could finally give my parents and my niece a big hug, after being away from them for 8 weeks.
'Home Sweet Home' being the only thought lingering in my mind.
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