Europe trip 2023

An easy train out to Helsinki airport. We’re flying FinnAir to Seoul then AirNZ home.

Before I even got to the airport I’d decided I would never fly FinnAir again. Their customer service is terrible! I booked these July flights in January. They did not bother to reserve a seat for us on the AirNZ flight, and when checking in they could not check us in for our second leg either! So AirNZ had no idea we were coming up till about 3 hours before the flight. Normal back in the day, not so normal these days when you can check in online 24 hours prior. Frustrating!

So we checked in, through security and then directly to duty-free. I’d found a flavour of Baileys Irish Cream in Europe and it was very very nice! I’d searched high and low through NZ duty free and liquor websites and could not guarantee I could source it in NZ, so I was buying bottles to take home! We wandered round the airport, finally settling at our gate. 

Not sure if Mum expects my hour by hour flight commentating but she gets it! Hauled this out of the depths of what’s app for you to enjoy!

Hour 0 – Boarding was at 4.50pm for a 5.15pm flight, which as soon as I saw it I thought ‘what a joke’, you can NOT load a long haul A350 that fast. Ended up starting to bored at 4.30 but not from the bridge….to a bus, then round to the plane attached to a bridge?? So so odd. Loaded from steps at the back, again so bizarre! On we got. 3 seats in the middle bit and CK one row behind on the isle.

Hour 1 – Off we went, late even though boarding started early! ‍♀️The take off was fantastic at full thrust it was so quiet! Even more so when the wheels got put away. It was really really noticeable how quiet the engines were and how good the sound proofing is! Amazing! Yay Airbus! ✈️ Entertainment system only got livened up once the seatbelt sign went off at some reasonable altitude, we’ve got cameras on the tail and on the belly. Would have been nice to watch that during take off!!! It’s got this great timeline of how long the flight is, when food is coming and when they’re turning the lights out for sleeping. Thought it was an 11 hour 50 min flight – today we’re going to knock it out in 11 hours and 5 minutes! Tail wind maybe? Then all the documentation came out – that would be me doing all that x 4 people while the rest of the whanau started on movie watching.

Hour 2 – Food! No choice – get what you’re given. Was nice though. Chicken casserole / pasta salad / wafer chocolate bar thing + blueberry juice. Got up and put a hoody on – planes are always so cold! Went to the business class toilet and brushed my teeth (not using plane water!!) and put aligners in – good girl me ‍♀️ Fell asleep but Connor came over and woke me up

Hour 3 – Tried to get back to sleep. Did some praying. Tried to parent CK from afar. Tummy unhappy probably due to onion in dinner.

Hour 4 – 7 Broken sleep

Hour 8 – Got frustrated with 2 inconsiderate people having their window shade up lighting up the entire dark cabin! Let RK put her head on my lap to sleep, she’s between her mummy and daddy and loving it. She went back to sleep quickly. She’s so cute when she sleeps.

Hour 9 – Watched time go by! Breakfast got served, no choice again. Omlette with cream cheese inside with a side of cubed up potatos and broccoli. More blueberry juice.

Hour 10 – Eyes burning, put glasses on, looked at movie selection. Nope nothing that takes my fancy. Thinking Seoul is going to be a bit of a nightmare. Need to go to transfer desk to check into next flight, also carrying 3 bottles of baileys from duty free in Helsinki but want to pop into the city. Unsure how that’s all going to work? Can’t check my baileys as our luggage all been checked through to Auckland so if I take it out of ‘air side’ I’m significantly over the 100ml thing! It’s bagged with no tamper and a receipt etc up butttttt doubt that means anything to anyone at security!

Hour 11 – The final hour.

So into Seoul we went. Decided we would go into Seoul, found a mall we’d like to visit, found a bus and off we went, in the pouring rain as only Asia does at that time of the year! 

By this time my three bottles of baileys had got tucked into my carry on suitcase. We splashed around, got wet but found the mall, had some food looked around then back on the bus to the airport to try and check in!!! We queued up, I’m sure we looked odd because we barely had any luggage it had all been checked through! I get to the front and again explain I’m a transfer customer and really shouldn’t be here….but I need boarding passes x4 and I have a wee dilemma of 3 bottles of baileys that I don’t want taken off me at security!!! So she looks at what luggage is against my booking, 3 bags. “And a 4th item that is a car seat” I exclaim. She looks confused, so I’m half thinking it’s got lost, again. Ahh well. Whatever. So she fortunately checks my carry on bag. Of course I’ve emptied out my drone and lithium batteries etc, added my 3 bottles of baileys, packed them in with my jacket that’s now dried from the rain because it’s so hot and muggy in Korea and off it goes.

We process through security, we splash out on airport food again, then we get to our gate and see the most magnificent thing….night time dark sky! Wow it’s been months. Our plane gets delayed due to a passing weather event. Then we board.

Hour 0 – Sat delayed by engineers flushing through liquid something? Nothing to be concerned about apparently. Then weather stopped all traffic. Once that passed by we were pushed back exactly 1 hour delayed, to the minute! We joined the other delayed flights and slowly taxied up to run way for our turn.

Hour 1 – Take off pretty dodgy. In the dark and foggy smoggy rain. Very bumpy but we’d been warned by our captain, Mike. What a noisy Boeing Dreamliner this plane is! That Airbus definitely was quiet. My well travelled wee girl was pretty scared so we held hands and I talked her through it. Not captain Mikes first rodeo, won’t be his last, he’s got pilots chatting in his ear ahead of him and behind him, he knows the weather forecast well. Woulda been a challenge for Captain Mike and his colleagues though. So the whole plane sat still in the dark in the terrible turbulence for probably an hour. Little pre schooler behind us : ‘the plane is going down’  His Daddy: ‘UP!!!’  Preschooler : ‘The plane is going down and up!!!!’ Haha.

Hour 2 – Still turbulent but the crew informed us the flight deck had allowed them to start their duties, they were great getting water out to everyone then finally dinner. At 1am local time! Me n rubs had chicken, boys had beef. Cheese cake for dessert!  

Hour 3 – Finished up dinner, went to the toilet and then back to our seats. Fell asleep while all cabin lights still on. Just couldn’t keep eyes open.

Hour 4-7 – Slept quite solidly between my two kiddies  

Hour 8 – Woke up over PNG. Checked to see we’d finally given up 33 thousand feet for 37, that’s a bit better! Less bumpy up here! Moved to RK’s window seat and she fell asleep on me. Watched the world go by. 

Hour 9 – Snuggled my girl. Boys swapped seats. Snuggled up with my husband. Then the cabin  lights went on….slowly and orange like a sunrise! Yawn. Breakfast rolled out, omelette, hash brown, sausage + fruit salad + muffin + yoghurt. I didn’t get to the yoghurt, way too full! 

Hour 10 – Ate breakfast then sat with the rubbish. Took photos of us near Brisbane on the flight map for Han. Watched the air hostesses working hard. Put glasses on, eyes been working hard on not much sleep. Started watching Whitney Houston movie but decided I wanted to watch with my nice Sonos speakers at home to hear her properly so gave up on that.

Hour 11 – The decent into Auckland. Beautiful.

 

And we were home. Customs almost took our Camino shells off us but when I kicked up a fuss the supervisor came over and let them through.
Sister n law swooped past with our car, we piled in and I drove us home as BK was a wee bit too tired.
Drove into our garage just as the sun set on a Friday night. Perfect timing.

Half unpacked and into bed for everyone! We all slept solidly right through the night.

Europe trip 2023 – complete.

Yes the next trip has been dreamt up, will be a different one that’s for sure, may even lead a group of parents and teenagers….watch this space!

Team Knowles, over and out.

Till next time,

Claire x

So it was meant to be an easy a quick bus trip to connect with Swiss train to the airport in Zurich, short hop up to Copenhagen then another quick hop to Vilnius, Lithuania.

It wasn’t that! …and I’m missing a bag and a car seat 😩

—-

Well I managed to write the above as we went along so I’ll fill in the gaps. It was QUITE the travel day! One I won’t forget for a long time! 

We got up early, out the door and to the bus stop looking like a travelling circus!!!!!

The bus was late! So odd for Swiss public transportation! 

It finally got to the train station and you’ve never seen me run so fast with my big pack on my back, and a bag of food and a suitcase….with my family trailing behind me!  Found a platform board to work out which platform our train was coming in on, ran to the platform. Got there with a couple of minutes to spare.

Train was late! Again! So odd!

I’d built a big buffer of time in so wasn’t too concerned! 

Train arrived, on we went, with all our stuff! 

A lovely hour of Swiss scenery.

Off at Zurich airport and wow what a long line for check in. We stood in that line an hour and a half! Crazy! We got to the front of the queue just as they started asking ‘anyone else for Copenhagen’ 

We checked our bags and made a beeline for  security. More waiting.

Finally got to our gate. 

“Your carry on suitcase is too big”

What on earth? I just checked my stuff, nobody said anything about my carry on!

“We’ll put it in the hold for you”

Um you should know I’ve got a drone in there with a LITHIUM battery. And 2 power banks and whatever else you said couldn’t go checked, so no you can’t have my bag! It’s got to go in the pressurised cabin!

“Take those items out and carry separately”

Whaaaaa????? Okay then. Whatever.

So i open up my suitcase and haul out all my electronics. I’m thankful for a bag of food I’m carrying because now it’s food and a drone and all kinds of other things! The whole how heavy and how many items I’ve got has entirely become irrelevant!! 

They tag my bag and it goes into a forward hold, right by the stairs onto the plane. I better get that back I think to myself.

I’m one of the last people to board and we’re right at the back. Typical.

I sit. Cute plane I think to myself. It’s like what I’d imagine famous singers fly their crew round in. Little cute private jet feeling.

As we taxi I can feel it’s got some pep to it, then we take off using about a 5th of the runway length. Woe! Powerful little thing! Gosh I love aviation.

But for some reason, we’re late and as we land I think, I’m not sure we’re going to make our connection. Oh. No.

I turn on my phone and my emails clear, oh they’ve worked out we are going to miss our flight. We’re now in Copenhagen but not flying to Vilnius, Lithuania we are now flying to Berlin, Germany. Great. Thanks for the email update but my boarding passes are wrong!!! Gaaah!

They throw my suitcase back at me, THANK YOU, as I disembark the plane, then I run for the transfers desk, family in tow. I quickly explain my boarding passes are wrong and I need new ones right now! She prints them off and we again run to our gate. The flight attendant is very happy to see me, had already printed my boarding passes so chuckled my other ones and the ones I’d just had printed….and we board.

I wonder if our checked luggage got the memo I wonder out loud as we board another peppy jet and my suitcase gets taken off me AGAIN to be put in the forward hold.

Hello Berlin! You’re one of my favourites but I didn’t expect to see you this trip! 

So now I really have the wrong boarding passes. Off to the transfer desk again….we pass the carrousel…

BK “ahh isn’t that your bag going round and round?” 

Yes!!!!!

So give up on transfers desk, grab my pack and it’s through arrivals, back round to check in…

Hello! I’m actually a transfer passenger but I saw my bag going round on the carrousel…so here it is! 

Them : your going where? 

Vilnius

That flight already closed

I’m. A. Transfer. Passenger. I’m. Not. Meant. To. Be. Here! 

So they make a thousand phone calls, check my bag and back through security we go.

We make it, barely. 

By this time Team Knowles are only barely holding it together, we never buy airport food but BK finds something for us to eat as we wait to board.

We get on our final flight to our final destination.

We arrive and of course, my bag arrives but we’re missing BK’s duffel with his and CK’s gear in it and RK’s car seat.

We do the paper work. We tell them very loudly we have an AirTag in the bag and can see it’s still in Zurich, it didn’t even get on the first flight!! They tell us the car seat lost its way In Copenhagen but has already been found and rerouted. It’ll be delivered tomorrow.

We find a bus, make our way to our accommodation.

Find more food and fall into bed.

What. A. Day.

We got going from Belgrade about 9am, it was to be a short 2.5 hours over the border to Timisoara.  I wasn’t sure what the city had in store for us but I was keen to see Romania anyway. We’d decided against Bucharest as it was just too much driving to the east to then have to double back.
We drove through back road after back road. Lots of agriculture. Lots of tractors. We knew we were in the middle of no where and weren’t surprised when we approached a very non descript border control. We were stamped out of Serbia and drove up to the Romania border control to be stamped in. We gave the border guard all our stuff, 4 passports, car registration and insurance documents. That’s all any country has ever asked for so we were pretty surprised when he asked for BK’s license! But he had his kiwi one so we handed it over. 

And this is where it started to go pear shaped!!

The guard then asks if we have an international drivers license.
Oh. Dear.
We then explain BK did get one before he left NZ but we’d misplaced the physical copy.
The guard checked something and comes back to inform us he could not let us in to Romania without it. He was so apologetic, he could see he’d just turned a kiwi family’s plans upside down. His english started to fail him so he wrote a heartfelt sorry message into google translate for us to read.

We turned around and parked up in ‘no mans land’ …and I pulled apart all our gear! Nope it really wasn’t with us. I knew I’d packed it as soon as it has arrived before we left NZ. I knew I’d put it with our travel insurance documents. All I can think of is that it has fallen out without me seeing earlier in our trip. We hadn’t used it or shown it for the car rental in Amsterdam or Barcelona or to pick up our Peugeot in Italy. 

So back through Serbia border control, they looked at us weirdly and off we went.

Then it was time for logistics, and while I just wanted to fall apart and cry I slowly and methodically worked through each problem.
I found a busy looking border to Hungary – my logic, if we could just be a car in a big long line they wouldn’t have time to trawl our passports and look at our weird stamp collection of out of Serbia then back in with no other country stamp between which screams ‘PROBLEM CHILD!’ 

So we set the nav and BK drove. 

Next was Airbnb, a big sorry we’re not coming to stay today because we can’t get into your country! She was the most lovely host and told me quickly to cancel so I’d get some money back. Which I did. She was so apologetic and so was I!
Next was accommodation for that night, I had a quick looking on booking.com and Airbnb, heaps around but was too nervous about the border crossing back into the EU so decided once we’d cleared the border I’d book.

And then I decided I’d write to the New Zealand embassy in Romania to complain!
Yes I probably could have worded it better or stronger or something but I was doing everything on the fly!

This is what I wrote :

Hi there,

We were denied entry to Romania at a road border crossing from Serbia today. The reason given : we weren’t carrying an international drivers licence to accompany our NZ drivers license. We did get one before we left New Zealand but have since misplaced it, only being here another (X) weeks it’s pointless ordering a new one from NZ and having it shipped over. We rung the AA in Belgrade but they could only do Serbian drivers licenses.
Please could you tell me if this was the correct measure taken by the border guard or were we unfairly treated?
Claire

This is their very unhelpful reply : 

Kia ora Claire,
Thank you for your email. I’m sorry to hear you were unable to enter Romania. Please note that the Romanian immigration authorities, like any country, have the right to refuse entry to their country to anyone that does not meet the criteria they set, in the same way that for example Immigration New Zealand can refuse people entry into New Zealand if they don’t meet our criteria. Entry into any country is never guaranteed, and is always up to the immigration authorities at the border. We cannot interfere in another country’s immigration policies, in the same way that other countries cannot interfere in New Zealand’s immigration policies.
Ngā mihi,

The one positive, that reply email did come back within 70 minutes of me sending mine so I was pretty pleased with their promptness!
The negative, not at all helpful! Didn’t at all answer my question!!

Fortunately we had food in the car so fed the crew and sat feeling extremely anxious as we closed in on our next border crossing, praying we’d get through back into the EU with internal borders and it would be simple. We sat in the queue, I was happy to be ‘yet another vehicle’
We checked out of Serbia very simply – I had all the passports open to the photo page and stacked together, she didn’t even look at the passports just blindly found a page to stamp!
There was 2 guards checking everyone’s luggage so I opened our boot to show ours. They asked if we had anything to declare, I said no, they asked if I was a diplomat, I said no. She took our passports, stamped them and said “goodbye!”  As we drove out, we realised there wasn’t another building to drive up to, that was the EU entry in the same building as the Serbia exit…we’d just very simply got back into the EU and not even realised it! 

Praise God, what a relief! Internal borders from now till we are stamped out to come home. 

Back to the logistics, found a farm stay on Airbnb, messaged them to see if they could receive us in an hour, they came back quickly that they could! So it was a top up of food at our favourite supermarket and we were on our way to a bed for the night. We arrived to a beautiful Airbnb and wonderfully friendly host. We got chatting and found out he’d done 5 caminos! We just finished one we exclaimed!
BK cooked spag bol for dinner and then the kids went to bed. I video called Mum and woke her up “you’ll never believe my day! I’m not where I’m meant to be!”

Yep 40 years old and still worth worrying about Mum! 🤪

So now we have 48 hours to fill before we rejoin the pre made plans. We lost about $100 NZD on Airbnb cancellation, few extra hours of driving and diesel, but in the big picture, that’s nothing at all really. I’m just glad that sago is over!  I’m happy to be back in the EU, I’m very thankful for data on my phone!

Till next time,

Claire

We started our first travel day with a walk round Mount Maunganui with Mum then it was up to Auckland to fly out. Fortunately I’d looked at my airline app a week prior and realised our flight had been pulled forward an entire 90 minutes! 

A smooth swap of our car to SK. I’d managed to check in online so an efficient bag drop. 

Little R is STILL little even all these years later, as we approached security she was walking ahead of us and a marshal asks loudly ‘who’s with this child’

Me in my head : do I claim her or not 🤔 

Me out loud : me?

Well it WAS worth claiming her as we were instructed to not scan our boarding passes and to stay left.

The families with young children fast pass line! Oh YES!!!!

After milling around. We all boarded on time only to be held up 25 minutes as ground crew were still loading our luggage and cargo.

Finally off, and what a beautiful day to fly out of Auckland. Oh how I’ve missed that Boeing whine as the engines go full thrust and we thunder down the runway! 

A planned maintenance stop in Adelaide, everybody and all carry on gear OFF the plane, through transit only to mill around and get back on the same plane! In transit we got water we’d just been given on the plane taken off us! Actually quite amusing, or infuriating, depending on how you look at the situation! 

While we were at it we picked up a few more passengers, topped up on fuel and off we went, fully laden with people/gear/fuel to Doha. We sat at 30,000 feet and endured about 7 hours of light to medium turbulence! None of Team Knowles cared, we all slept through most of it! Once we got up by India we increased to 36,000 feet and the air space was much smoother!! I’d love to know why we got limited to 30,000 cause that seatbelt sign did not get turned off but the bathrooms still had to be used during all those hours.

A smooth stop over in Doha in a beautiful new masssssssive airport! Two active runways which are built up so high off the sandy scrap land. Taxiing took forever on our way out again. Flew over some high risk countries so was very happy to be at 34,000 feet! Thanks to being a Qatar airways club member I got free wifi onboard so it was lovely to catch up on a few text messages.

Smoothly into Amsterdam and was so very relieved to see our AirTags notifications pop up on our phones – our luggage had made it. Phew!!! Schiphol is notoriously bad for loosing luggage and for big looooong lines for customs – fortunately we didn’t experience either!

Exhausted we picked up our rental car, blitzed round a supermarket for supplies (I purchased a bunch of tulips since they’re the whole reason we’re here now, $5 NZD score!) We found our Airbnb, settled in, and very quickly konked. Everyone slept all night! 

It was 42.5 hours door to door. A mammoth effort by everyone holding it together, so proud of my team!

Till next time,

Claire