Thursday 5th September, 2013

Dubai

It's 5am local time, and I've just landed at Dubai International Airport. There's a 3 hour layover before my flight to Amsterdam. The airport is huge, and there's a lot of shopping to do (not my cup of tea though). The first shop I see when I get into the terminal is Starbucks, something I've never had, so decided to try it out. The coffee was average to be honest - I've had better (trying not to sound like a condescending bastard here).

After walking around for a while, I find some place to sit, since I still had about an hour and a half left before boarding for my next flight started. I can't sleep sitting up, so just browsed the next using the airports Wi-Fi. Just after 8am, boarding started, and I got onto the massive A380 to Amsterdam.

The journey starts - Wednesday September 4th, 2013

My flight leaves at 7:15pm. I made it to the airport at just after 4pm, so had a few hours to kill. Nothing to do at O.R. Tambo International (in Johannesburg), so just had some coffee before the check-in counters opened. After I checked-in and received by boarding pass, I head off to the Slow Lounge. R250 gets you in, then it's unlimited drinks and food inside. I only had a few Whiskey's before I decided to head off to the boarding gates. This was my first international flight, so the excitement was almost boiling over.

2013 - The travel bug bites

June 2013

Having a day off from work, I decided to brave the Home Affairs office and apply for my passport. They open at 7am, so I made sure I was there at 6:30am, armed with all the required documentation and a pen (something you need whenever you decide to pay a visit to any government institution). So after filling out all the forms, taking photo's, smearing fingerprints etc. I was finally ready to submit the application together with the payment. One problem - the information on the Home Affairs website was horribly outdated, so I did not have enough cash on hand. Sigh. Off to the ATM I go (luckily there was one around the corner). Back at Home Affairs I had to join the back of the queue. All in all, the entire process "only" took 2 hours - win.

July 2013

Four weeks after applying for the passport, I get my SMS notification that it is ready for collection. This part is easy luckily. Immediately after receiving my passport I get onto the Contiki website to find a tour that interested me. Time off from work was limited, so I had a look at all the tours that were in the region of 10 - 16 days. After exploring all the options, I decided on the Amsterdam to Barcelona tour, departing start of September 2013.

The birth of the blog

My name is Ryno (pronounced Ray-no), a 26 year old South African from Johannesburg. Java developer by day, hibernator by night, and part-time blogger in between.

Last year was my first time travelling out of the country, and the experience was mind-blowing (more about that later). So a few days ago I booked my second Contiki tour to Europe and decided I was in the mood to share some of my experiences. And so, this blog was born.