16 - 20. April.Melbourne...Singapore...Dubai........................................volcano ..........................!!!!

Sorry for the delay in writing about my European adventure but my journey has taken another unpredictable turn and I am stuck with all the other transient travellers, mid journey in Dubai!  Being very new to travelling and using Kelly on the move....when I brought up my blog the instruction bar was wrtten in Arabic!!! I tried to find someone who looked a bit technically inclined to help me fix this as I had tried everything that seemed logical....anyway....I'm into here now and able to share.......

Leaving Melbourne I had no idea what was in front of me...during the hour stopover in Singapore, Gary informed me that some airports had closed due to the volcano eruption but Hamburg was still open! Arriving in Dubai, we were all confronted with the stark reality that we were not going anywhere! I quickly started asking questions as to what/where we had to go and a group of us stuck together and began an amazing unfolding of events!
Emirates were not able to answer questions and as there were...and still haven't been any announcements or any broadcasts to inform people accurately, the spiral of frustration and heated emotions began!! 
However, the positive in all of this is that it has been a VERY social friendly situation amongst the travellers because EVERYBODY is willing to share their story and chat! We have had sooooo much time standing in queues trying to secure information from the authorities which is relevant to our own situations so this time has been spent getting to know people from all over the world! We have realised that the most accurate info has come from travellers who have had access to the internet and also that if one avenue of approaching a situation isn't productive then someone will have an alternative suggestion that has worked for them or someone they have spoken to! 

I linked up with Lynne Hinton, an exPrincipal from Brisbane, travelling to The UK to run a 2 week inservice for Principal/teachers. It was great to have a friend to talk things through with. We tried to retrieve our bags to no avail. Before Lynne had left Brisbane she had been redirected to Paris however when she got to Dubai, Paris was congested and eventually shut down so her only decision, after a whole day of lining up to get info, was to return to Brisbane. We shared a room at a hotel which Emirates refused to pay for regardless of the fact that we were entitled to a voucher. We resigned ourselves to the fact that atleast we had a room whereas many others were not so lucky or able! Marcus and Sandra and two others, whom we had bumped into all day, were on our bus to the hotel. They were trying to get to Frankfurt. Emirates had given them all vouchers yet Lynn and I seemed to be the only people who had to pay their own way????!!! We had left Hollie at the airport. She had decided to stay in the standby queue for a flight to UK.

We fell into bed exhausted, having managed a filling dinner 'on Emirates' knowing that we were both booked on flights out of Dubai on Saturday...Lynne to Brisbane and me to Hamburg at 9am! We were 'serenaded' until 3am by very loud Indian music out in the courtyard!