The Crossing

Its eight in the morning in Berlin, Germany on Thursday 14 April. We touched down yesterday at 7am, after over 27 hours of flying and waiting in airports, to Shanteya's greatest relief as she became very sick on the second flight (21 hours to go, damn!) which was a downer on the beginning of the journey. To our surprise we saw a familiar face in the cue for our Abu Dhabi to Berlin flight. Will Henderson from Bellingen. We chatted with him about some busking and van buying tips for Berlin as we boarded our final plane. After we had disembarked the Air Berlin metal bird we stood there waiting at the baggage claim area for what seemed like (and was) a very long time to receive our bags. Finally one of the airport staff announced that our bag (we managed to get all but one) along with 25 others had been misplaced somewhere in the world. Well, that's not exactly what we wanted to hear! After another hour or two of hassling Baggage Service staff we discovered that our bag (Jo's bag) had been left in Abu Dhabi and would be delivered to where we were staying in the next day or two. "I stink now, so I bet I'm going to smell really good after two more days of the same clothes!" thought Jo. We met Nadia (Shanteya's friend who she stayed with 5 years ago) and Boelie (Teya's friend from school) at the airport and they drove us back to Nadia's house. After eating some lunch we went down to have a couple of hours sleep. Six hours later we woke up! Jo went for a walk to the shops and bought some food then we ate a lovely dinner cooked by Boelie (who is a chef) then went down to bed at what our body clocks thought was 5:30am in the morning.

The adventure has begun, With all our bags but one, In Berlin we have arrived, For our families 'We survived'.

PHOTOS FROM TOP TO BOTTOM: Sunrise over Eastern Europe from our final plane, a church close to Nadia's place, 'The Castle' next door to Nadia's house