The eagle has landed

OK, I'm done flying for a while. Bloody hell we live far away from the places far away from Australia! Some 30 hours of airports and planes, with the last leg being 4.5h drive from Vienna to Krakow.

Tragic news on arrival. Almost entire Polish government died in a plane crash in Russia - seems like something from history books pages. This time however it's self imposed. Defying advice from the flight controllers and the pilot, the president insisted on several attempts to land in "zero visibility". Eventually they've made it to the ground, and in style too.

In a typical Polish manner a comment that "it solved many problems" has been floated.

More importantly, and closer to my heart, Philippa passed away on the weekend. I was very sorry to hear that, and my thoughts are with you Geoff and your family.

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The Dubai airport scores 9.63 out of 10 on the "we have the money, and proud of it" scale.

Shiny, shiny...

...

...

there be LEDs inside glass...

I was a little upset to find that Canon lenses were half price of what I paid in Melbourne, and that with an international warranty, for which in Oz they want $200 extra, oh well. Considering that at Tulla (duty free obviously only means that you don't have to buy anything, not that the taxes have been removed) the prices are actually higher than in the city, Dubai was a little bit of a surprise.

Just this very second the sirens went off all over the city as part of the national day of mourning - 12 noon. Strange feeling, air raid sirens in full blast...

Landing in Vienna was a heart-stopper. The Boeing 777-300ER has a set of cameras on its body and you can watch a live feed from them on the seat screen. I like the nose cam and enjoyed it during all take offs and landings.
When approaching Vienna, the funny thing was that I couldn't actually see the lights and the runway. At very low altitude I realised that we were approaching at about 30 -40 degrees to the runway, and I was hoping for the ever entertaining rudder manoeuvre, which turns the plane without banking... this did not come.
At a few metres, seeing the runway in the lower left hand corner of the screen and the plane pointed directly away from it and still descending, my survival mode kicked in - braced my feet at the seat in front, grabbed the arm rests and pushed myself deep into the seat. The same moment a "brace, brace, brace" came from the PA, a fraction of a second after we hit the tarmac at a massive angle. A few people were pushed into the isle, a bit of commotion, rudder manoeuvre with wheels on ground pointed the nose along the runway... quite a rapid breaking, with a back of a small plane stopped in front of us, and a large one crossing the runway... Fuck it I thought, turned the phone on and recorded the camera view. See it on YouTube.
Welcome to Austria, the land of daughters in the basement and exciting landings.


The drive through Slovakia was great. The speed limit is 130km/h but 180 seems to be the preferred speed. We drove through a massive wind farm between Vienna and Bratislava. Magnificent structures they are, them turbines.

This is just a few of them, we drove through the farm for about 30 minutes...

We stopped twice at roadhouses and the Slovaks definitely know how to eat. Half a chicken is the small serve and boiled pig trotters come in half a kilo increment portions. With that, chips salads and a beer and back on the road.
The Polish leg of the freeway is only being built. Massive long bridges going between mountains for kilometres. Bizarre landscape, unfortunately too dark to photograph, but think of building a bridge between Bright and Mt. Hotham snaking through the hills and over entire villages. The old road, truly deserves the adjective old, potholes, no lines, frightening.
We did 420 km in 4.5h with two sit-and-eat stops, so not too bad.


Krakow cold and rainy, a good day to stay in...