After seven weeks in South and Central America we were heading home and neither of us could be more excited! While we enjoyed every minute of our adventure, we were looking forward to the comforts of having our own (hot!) shower (not a drizzly stream) and bed (with sheets) for a few days.
Our return flight again included a stopover in Toronto. Imagine our delight when we boarded the plane through the exact same gate that we started our trip via Toronto seven weeks ago. We had come full circle!
Our excitement went up a notch when we realised it was going to be an empty flight. Before the plane even started moving, I dashed for one of the middle rows, so each of us had three seats to ourselves.
But, it was not going to be smooth sailing. Or flying rather. Toronto had freezing rain earlier in the day and our plane had to be de-iced so we were waiting to get in the queue (behind 8 other aircraft). When we finally got to the front, the captain announced that, because of the long delay in the queue, we didn’t have enough fuel left to get us to London!! We had to refuel, but there is a small chance we would need to come back to the de-icing queue again afterwards! We could not believe it! Although the silver lining was the empty plane. Eventually, after 4.5 hours, we finally headed home.
Our amazing friend, Nick, and our kind neighbour, looked after our house while we were away and even sorted our mail and bought some bread and milk. It was wonderful to be home. Unfortunately we also had quite a few things to do while in London so it was not going to be a relaxing week.
Top of our to-do list was to apply for our Chinese visa which takes three working days. We made an appointment for Monday morning (our flight to India is scheduled for Wednesday evening, so clearly not leaving much room for error!) as we could not part with our passports before the weekend. We were heading to Austria on Friday as we had tickets to the Biathlon World Cup taking place in Hochfilzen this year. We also had a few bits of admin to sort out and both of us wanted to stop by the office to say hi.
And then, of course, we had heaps of washing to do! It was strewn across the kitchen floor like confetti in the aftermath of some sort of victory parade. Given that it’s the middle of winter and freezing in England, our washing normally takes a full 24 hours to dry. And because we never bothered to get another drying rack, we can only do one wash per day. So it took us the whole week to get through all our washing!
Biathlon World Cup time
Another day another early flight. Luckily we were travelling to a very snowy and very sunny Austria so it was like a mini holiday within a holiday. The race was on Sunday so we had Saturday to ourselves. Initially we had grand plans to ski that day, but as soon as Derek “rested his eyes” after breakfast that plan disappeared in a puff of nap. After a marathon nap we eventually ventured out in the early afternoon.
Zell lake was completely iced over and looked quite magical as we headed into town. It seemed a bit strange to be walking around a ski village without having any aches and pains from a day’s skiing but we joined in with the apres ski anyway.
Early Sunday morning we made our way to Hochfilzen. Neither of us have watched biathlon (or other skiing) events live before, so we were rather excited! Derek knew the names of the athletes but I had no idea who we were supporting.
The women’s race was first with the race favourite Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier. It was exciting to watch as each of the ladies missed a few shots and the places from 2-8 changed constantly. Laura Dahlmeier, however, remained in first position after the first prone shoot and completed a fantastic race.
The ladies during the second prone shooting
Annoyingly, the men’s race was only scheduled to start four hours later. It seems bizarre to have a 30 minute race, followed by a four hour gap before another 30 minute race. With nowhere to hide from the cold weather, we walked up and down to keep warm and finally found a tent where I had some gluhwein to warm up.
The men’s race was equally exciting and the outstanding favourite was always going to be Martin Fourcade. Coming into the first shoot he was third, but unlike the competitors in first and second place, he didn’t miss a shot. He took – and never relinquished – his lead. In fact, he only missed one shot in the final round and had a near perfect race.
Martin Fourcade in number 3!
We rushed back to the bus as we still had a 2-3 hour drive back to Munich ahead of us. With another flight delay in store, we only got into bed at 3am, not quite prepared for the early morning (again) into London for our visas. It is tough to be on holiday!
And we’re off!
This past week flew by and while we would have loved another day at home to get everything sorted, we were excited about Asia and the next part of our trip.
Despite our best attempts to repack smartly and end up with lighter bags, both our bags ended up about 2kg heavier. But, this time I didn’t have four separate items and neither of us were lugging heavy jackets, which we considered a win!
However, at the time of leaving the house one crucial item was still missing from our bags… our passports. We planned to collect these from the Chinese embassy on our way to the airport. While Derek went back to his office to get Rupees from a colleague, I made my way to the embassy. In contrast to any embassy I have ever been in, there was no queue! Within seconds I had our passports in hand and we were on our way.