OK, I'm doing a bit of catching up now on this blog, so hopefully it'll turn into tight stream-of-conciousness rather than the bloat-by-bloat I churn out when I have too much time. [Update:  Nope, sorry it's still kinda waffly.]

First leg - Brisbane to Doha, Wed 11 Dec

After a last minute flurry of packing, we got to the airport with plenty of time and luggage on the night of Wed 11 Dec.  At this point I was very appreciative that Emma convinced me  to take the whole week off for last minute packing and things.

The first challenge was to redistribute the luggage to ensure each bag was close enough to the 23kg limit that they'd wave it through.  This involved a few trips to the airport scales, but we finally managed it.  [My backpack was, of course, impossible to overpack, maxing out at about 18kg.]

The next hurdle was that our somewhat inattentive travel agent had not submitted the required paperwork for Carl's anaphylaxis.  For a brief period it appeared that we wouldn't be allowed on the plane because the return leg in January wasn't fully signed off (though I wasn't involved in the discussion).  But Emma and the lady at the Qatar airlines desk (with help from a doctor on a phone hotline) managed to sort it out.  Big boo to Flight Centre though, whose agent gave a very strong hint that she'd moved on to other customers once she'd collected her commission on our flights.

After that we got to the priority boarding area to wait to get on first and wipe down the tray and armrests etc.  It may seem a bit fussy, but airlines are rather famous for serving peanuts and nobody wants anaphylaxis 10km up over the Indian Ocean.

Once the rest of the passengers boarded, the people in front immediately put their seats back (while still at the gate).  This meant I couldn't easily reach my carry-on at my feet and I'm not sure why they don't have a switch to prevent that.  Luckily the seat screens tilted so it didn't affect the entertainment options.  Speaking of, Emma had bought me an adapter to plug my noise-cancelling headphones into those weird double-jack things they still insist on having on airplanes.  So I chucked on a Nature Sounds track to augment the chamomile teabag I already had infusing in my waterbottle, and snuck in some meditation while the plane taxied etc.

The plane took off at about 10:30pm, so we theoretically had time to sleep.  But we're not blessed with those abilities, so it was time to crack open the movies for the 14 hour flight to Doha.  Here's some quick reviews:

Inside Out 2 - 'Salright.  I think I lost track of the plot about 2/3 of the way through when I tried to doze off and didn't really care by the end.  But that's not the film's fault.
Dune 2 - A good way to kill a few hours and Harkonnens.  Interesting that the baddies had a very Finnish-sounding name.  Also good that I got to wateh the second half since we haven't had Disney+ at home for a while (I have a Dad-policy of paying for only one streaming service at a time, and we switch every 6 months or so when we've exhausted the old one.  I'm not interested in bleeding money when SBS On Demand has the best selection of movies for free.)
North by Northwest - They had a good selection of old movies on Qatar air, as well as a watchlist, so I could go through the full list and tag a few likelies and this was one.  Pretty good film though quite silly, and I somehow managed to miss the end of the famous crop-duster scene.  One notable thing I noticed was the casual sexism in an early scene where Cary Grant interrogates the (female) maid at the hotel for quite a few minutes (inconveniencing her and interrupting her work), but then later he only gives a tip to the (male) porter who answers one simple question that would form part of his regular duties.

Some interesting things I saw out the window:
Alice Springs - Or some other well-lit town in the  middle of the continent.
Colombo - Shining like a jewel in the wee-small-hours next to the black ocean.
Some weird street-lamps on mangrove islands in the Arabian Sea that eventually turned out to be ships under light clouds - presumably the main shipping lane from Mumbai to the Red Sea.

The food was OK, but I was somewhat distracted by my managing to knock my whole cup of orange juice ony my lap and down my legs into my boots - which I was unable to easily clean up because of the aforementioned people in front having their seats back (though by now at least legitimately) and unable to reach my feet with a napkin.

Overall, the Qatar Air flight was full and cramped and tiring - given that we chased the nighttime across the globe for about 16 hours of night (which I guess will help prepare us for a Nordic winter).

Second leg - Doha to Copenhagen, Thu 12 Dec

We arrived in Doha with pretty much the right amount of time to go through security (again?!?) and find our next gate.  This time it had a bus out to the plane.  At least we saw the sun for the first time in nearly a day as dawn broke over the Persian Gulf.

Finnair is a better airline than Qatar, based on n=3+1.  Like our other Finnair flight in 2008, the plane was about half full.  There was also more leg room and the food was better (Erica and I had a delicious Shakshuka, which was actually more of a sausage-flavoured prism of scrambled egg, but it was damn tasty). 

The only slight drawback was the slightly narrower range of movies to choose from.  But I watched Life of Pi which I'd been meaning to see for a while (I boycotted it on Disney+ when they prevented me from watching it at faster speed, but this time I had hours to kill).  It was OK.  The story is good and was faithfully rendered by Ang Lee, and the animation of the tiger was impressive.  But I was tired and I felt it somehow lacked a certain something (though I may have been more impressed if I hadn't read the book and already been familiar with the story).

After that I partook of the free cocktails (gin/grapefruit and gin/lingon - which I drank out of the can out of abuntant caution after my Qatar experience) and played a few rounds of Angry Birds.

One interesting thing was the flight map which (due to a rather stark geopolitical evolution) took us over Iraq, Turkey, the Black Sea and Romania - avoiding the Levant, Ukraine and the variously-coloured Russias.  It's weird that Baghdad is now the safer option in the region, but there you go.

It was cloudy for most of the trip, thought Erica did see the tops of the Carpatians peaking(sic) over the clouds.  And eventually, we dipped below the cloud layer (saying goodbye to bright sunshine for a while) into Copenhagen.

There, we grabbed our luggage (which beat us to the carousel and mercifully intact) and a tourist map and headed to the Metro, which we rode the Metro to Forum and hopped off, only to be presented with a long flight of stairs and an out-of-order lift.  So I happily walked my backpack to the top and then trudged back down to manhandle 4 suitcases up a long flight of stairs, before we all set off wheeling our suitcases (as I suspected I would end up doing) and carry-on to our accommodation about 800m away.  We did at least see the big canals that surround the landward approaches to the centre of Copenhagen - the remnants of the old city defences.

And so we eventually foung our AirBnB accommodation in a flat on Dahlerupsgade in the outer-inner west of the old town.

But Copenhagen can wait for another post.

The whole journey took about 24 hours, and I don't think I got an hour's sleep in that time.

For COVID precautions, we wore disposable N95 masks on both flights (except when eating).  This wasn't particularly uncomfortable - in fact on a generally uncomfortable flight, it wasn't at the top of the list of discomforts.  We'd bought fancy masks before we left which we brought along, but frankly they were less confortable than the disposable ones and we didn't bother wearing them.  But as far as wasted money goes, they barely registered a blip in the bonfire of cash being spent on this trip.  And none of us got sick from the flight, so it either worked or was unnecessary.  But one of the frustratingly insidious things about betting on COVID is that you don't know if a precaution is a waste of time until half a week after the fact, so we preferred being overcautious than sick.