Well the trip in Germany / Holland had to come to end sometime. So we were back to were we started, Cologne. We left early the next morning to catch the train back to Cologne. We were greeted with open arms by Hannelore, and we were half an hour earlier than she expected! She rushed up to the supermarket to buy us food for breakfast! Hans came back from the dentist and then he took us to this most amazing place called Konigswinter.
First he drove us to Petersburg, which is a place on top of a big hill looking out over the city and the river. It was pretty chilly up there but very impressive. We then went to this place called Konigswinter. Hans was very sneaky and insisted we walk. We had no idea what we were in for. This had to be the biggest trek up hill we hato the top, which unfortunately got badly damaged in World War II. It is currently being further rebuilt.
The trek was incredible, but boy was it worth it. Hans promised the lunch at the top was excellent. Well Hans certainly didn’t let us down. The view at the top of this massive hill was absolutely amazing. It’s probably the most amazing view we’ve ever seen. We walked back down a little to the restaurant. The restaurant looked out over this amazing outlook of the Rhine River and the City of Bonn. Absolutely stunning!! The food was also incredible. Nat had Chicken stuffed with spinach and cheese. It was the most tender delicious chicken ever. After that, waffles. These were the best waffles ever in the whole entire world! DELICIOUS!!
He is incredible. We were absolutely stuffed after our big walk and he was ready for more! What he didn’t tell us, is that there is a funicular (mini train) that can take you up and down the big hill! Very sneaky indeed! We took the funicular back down, not just because we were tired from the walk, but because Nat ate every last crumb of those waffles!!! We walked around the little town and had a coffee to perk ourselves up again! Hans drove us back after our big day out.
We spent our last night with Hans & Hannelore. We were all feeling rather sad that we were parting ways. We had such an amazing time with them. While we were out, Hannelore had been busy cooking. She made some delicious mushroom soup. She’s incredible. Its Nat’s favourite soup and she didn’t even know! It was awesome.
Our last morning together. Cam got up and Hannelore was drinking Cognac as it was Germany’s Re-Unification Day. This is to celebrate the rejoining of East and West Germany. It was only 8am in the morning!! When Nat came down Hannelore wanted to crack the champagne!! We managed to hold her to 11am to crack it. So at 10.50 she opened it! We celebrated our time together with a few drinks before we had to pack our bags for Australia. We didn’t want to leave and they didn’t want us to leave either. They drove us to the Airport and Hannelore and Hans were so sad. We can’t wait to catch up with them again in the 2007.
A long trip home. Cologne to London Gatwick, 1½ hours . Bus from Gatwick to Heathrow, 2 hours. Queue to check in, 2 hours. Singapore Airlines' computer system was down! Brooke brought our other suitcase out to the Airport, but got stuck in the tube for a good 2 hours. We finally checked our luggage in. We couldn’t pack any of our toiletries in our hand luggage due to security restrictions. The silly woman checked our luggage through to Perth, but we were staying in Singapore overnight. She didn’t even ask us if that was ok! Before we had realized what she’d done, the bags had already gone through!
The flight London to Singapore, 13 hours. We got to Singapore, dropped our bags and headed to the shops to buy ourselves a new shirt to wear and some deodorant! After 13 hours on a plane all we wanted was a long shower and some clean clothes! We had an awesome dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Absolutely delicious! Headed back to hotel for a restless night sleep. But not before Cam went for a swim in the lovely roof top pool overlooking the sea and the airport.
For some crazy reason, We had decided to put our passports in the safe. We never use the safe. We got up early, got the free shuttle to the airport. We were looking forward to having breakfast at the airport and doing our duty free shopping. We went to check in, and I asked Cam where our passports were. The look said it all! Shit!! They were still in the safe in our hotel room! Oh my God, the most chaotic moment of our lives. We were so worried that we were going to miss our flight!
Nat begged a taxi driver who had just dropped a passenger off, to take us to our hotel. At first he said no, taxi rank is downstairs. I said, we don’t have time to go downstairs, we are going to miss our flight, our passports are in the safe in our hotel! He agreed to take us, although he wasn’t supposed to. He raced us back to the hotel, Cam grabbed our passports and raced back the airport. Speedy Gonzales! He really got that Toyota Corona singing. Of course our gate was right at the end of the terminal. I rushed all the way to the gate and Cam still wanted to get duty free! Can you believe it!! I said, "Well you can get your duty free but I am not waiting!" Nat ran to the gate with both our backpack and our cabin case. Just as I got to the gate they called final call and closed that gate! Cam caught up to me just as I was walking through the gate. Talk about a close call! We were some of the the last people on the plane. They closed the gate 20 minutes before take off time. Any later we would have missed our flight!
The 5 ½ hour flight went really fast. We were so excited to be home. We were walking through passport control and there was Matt Smowton! We were on the same flight from Singapore and we didn’t even know it! We breezed through Customs easily. Got through the doors and there was no one there! We met Mat’s Mum but couldn’t see any of our families! After a few minutes we caught up with the Kennedy’s. Deb wasn’t far behind. After a bit of confusion, we met at Silks’ bar, Belmont tavern for a drink. It was so good to be home!
We have some pictures of this part of our journey on our photobucket site: http://s108.photobucket.com/albums/n1/cambodian073/Singapore/
Coming next, our arrival and Perth, including the two weddings!
Cam&Nat
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