Planes, Planes, Planes...

Well we've made it!! I think the words interesting and exhausting are great discribing words for the start of the adventure. :) Our first flight was nice. We watched a lot of movies, read a little, and played a few games. Each seat had their own tv screen with a remote that doubled as an old school Nintendo controller--pretty funny. You could basically play anything from sudoku to a Mario cart-like game. There was also a USB connection to charge your phone or ipod/ipad. We had a Korean meal with seaweed soup, rice, tofu(I think), veggies, wine, and fruit. (Christy--I took a picture so that you could help tell us what the food was!) they even served you with real silverware! Neither Rob or myself slept well on that flight, but we had another 7 hour flight to do that on so no worries-right?! So we landed in Seoul at about 4:20pm and had an hour to get off the plane to catch our next. We didn't realize that we'd have to go through another security check but we made it. This flight was noisy. Nobody else seemed tired but us. Thank goodness for the sound canceling headphones that I got Rob for valentines day!! I was also not feeling the best--probably due to lack of sleep or just dehydration. I wasn't hungry and I couldn't find a comfortable spot to sleep. Rob was able to sleep for a few hours though which was good. We made it into Bali at about midnight. Our original plan was to get as much sleep possible on the flights and then we'd just try to stay at the airport to save a little $$. We had a 9 hour layover until our flight left for Perth, but I was exhausted and told Rob that we should try to find a hotel to get some solid sleep. Boy was that an eye opening experience!! Immediately as we got off the plane, it was hot & humid--very humid. A feeling that neither Of us were used to. We had to wait in a long line to obtain a visa just to be in the country and we had to get through customs. I was feeling fever-ish so the humidity and long lines were not on my side. Finally we made it through and as we were retrieving our bags out of now where these three men came and whisked us and our bags away. At first I freaked out a little inside--like "umm who are you? And where are you taking our bags?" but then I remembered that they just do that[to foreigners] it's their way of being friendly..?? Well it was all very nice until about 15-20 feet later they gave our bags back to us and asked for 100,000 rupiah!! Haha we learned our lesson quickly! The next step was finding a cab to get to a hotel. Now keep in mind that it's about midnight and we are not in our best mindset being tired and off of schedule. So I think finding a cab was probably the scariest part for me because everyone seemed so sketchy. They all seemed like they wanted to take advantage of us, being American. Luckily my fantastic husband read about this part in our Bali books and knew a little bit about how much cabs would cost. So he was able to barter with one of the cab drivers. Now that was all swell but we had no hotel booked so we really didn't know where we were nor where we were going to go. We didn't know the closest, cheapest hotel & we were relying on these men to take us somewhere, safely. Our cab driver seemed friendly enough and first took us to an alleyway hotel. Before you actually pay for a room, it's customary to show it to the paying guest first to ensure it's what they want. That's all swell but leaving the running taxicab with our luggage in the trunk was little unnerving. So this first place smelled of mothballs and the air conditioning wasn't working. Let's just recap quickly...it's about 12:30am, I'm hot, exhausted, sick & uncomfortable. On to the next hotel/villa!! We pull into this beautiful front drive--we walk up to the front desk(which is outside by the way) and the price for a very basic room was 900,000 rupiah (which is about $100USD). We typically would've turned it down, but we were both so tired, all we wanted was sleep. So there we were heading to our very expensive room that we were going to occupy for about 6 hours, but it was pure bliss! I had only been able to sleep for about 4/5 hours and woke up still not feeling well. I forced some sips of water and a granola bar which helped. Quickly we were onto our final flight--ahhh thank goodness! Bali's airport is pretty small so they shuttle you out to the Tarmac and onto the plane you go. This flight was insane!! It was filled with children who were loud and crazy! Haha we were lucky enough to sit in front of a screaming child but I had to keep remembering that I was on my way to Australia and that this ride would be over in 4 short hours(just like this blog!! Haha). Well friends, we made it safely to Perth and were greeted by the best resident--RUSS!! It was a gorgeous 90 degrees and felt amazing!!