Australia has been a dream for me since my college days.I am still unsure what attracted me to this place , may be the flowers and trees once I have seen in a wall paper or may b the laid back atmosphere it has or may be the white beaches or beautiful sunny weather. I am still not sure the pulling factor but I always wanted to live there at least for sometime in my life.
So as a further step I applied for the Australian PR and I was granted a visa on last December.Needless to say ,I was all happy and jumping with the hopes of moving to Australia sooner or later..
The visa grant letter came with a 'First Entry Date' of 7th Oct 2014. That means me and my kid should make the entry before that date. Otherwise the visa will be deemed invalid.
So I decided to travel and was all excited.When I checked the Australian destinations , all of them are more than 10 hours flight time from Dubai. The shortest flying distance is to Perth which is 10 hours and Sydney being the longest . My excitement suddenly started to narrow down thinking abt the long flight I should have alone with the toddler.I started thinking over and over about it. All happiness and excitement started to vanish slowly. I started feeling that trip would be horrible with me and kid all alone. My husband was not getting leaves and there were other issues as well.I started to sulk.
I started thinking over many options.
Option 1: As my cousin lives in Melbourne, at first I thought I will go to Melbourne. The non stop flights were always full until March. The other two flights to Melbourne are connecting in Singapore and in KULampur.And changing the flight with the kid around wont be a nice idea. On top of that , MEL flight is 14 or 15 hours long.
Option 2 : I checked whether any of relatives or friends live in Perth. From my parents I came to know that my second cousin lives in there. I checked with them whether they can just pick me up from the airport and drop off to where do I stay. I tried to get their contact number just for emergency purposes . Both in vain.
Option 3 : It was not even option when I started with this whole thing. But came very close to be an option. Some spark related and beautiful option .. I am sorry I cant give in the details here...G.H.A.Z.A.N.O.V.A :).. And this was the best option..
So finally i took the big step of travelling alone with the toddler and Chose Perth as the destination cuz that's the shortest flying time from dxb. I booked a crew hotel and changed the currency. As such I am scared of flight journey, so scared that even the Captain and FO can hear my heart beats and will mistake it for some kinda turbulence.
But what option do i have other than this? Though I have travelled alone with the kiddo to Indian Destinations, this was the first time I was going to fly to long distance where I will surely get a jet lag .
Throughout my predicament and agony, my mother kept on calling me and said all will be ok. There will be someone to extend a helping hand when needed.. I kept thinking.. Thinking.. That's what i do other times as well. Again checked on my options just to make sure if any other options are there.
Finally the big day arrived. The flight was kinda empty. I got 3 seats to myself and one other person sitting in the 4th seat.It was a night flight.So the baby fell asleep past the dinner. I too was sleepy. The aircraft was cruising at 40,000 feet. Not much of noise.Peaceful atmosphere. I was getting kinda royal treatment by the crew firstly because i have a toddler secondly I think I was the only staff who was travelling in that flight. Towards the equator, there was slight turbulence which woke me up. I checked on the baby he was fast asleep.
Exactly at the same moment I realised that the person who will lend a helping hand in difficult times or who will never leave your side is 'YOU' yourself.You need to be strong and tough and keep your heads up. 'YOU' have a lot of hidden potential in you which will come out in least predicted situations.And this was the moment for me. I was no more scared of the turbulence.I looked at my baby. Hugged him tight and went back to sleep only to open my eyes when the destination was just 30 minutes in reach..
Life is good :)
