From Darwin to Paris: a long haul worth every minute.

After months of planning and impatiently counting down the days, it was finally time for my journey to Paris. As excited as I was to have finally arrived in the city of love, getting here was an adventure all in itself, one that took me across multiple countries, three different flights and more hours of transit than I'd like to count.

I started with a 2-hour 40-minute flight to Bali with Jetstar. As to be expected it was nothing special, but thankfully, we made it on time with no delays. I managed to catch my next flight with Qatar Airways with no issues. I only had a 2-hour layover so the stress was on to make it there in time! But everything went incredibly smoothly, and I made it with an hour and a half to spare.

My next flight was 9-hours 45-minutes with Qatar Airways and it was a bit of a game changer. Let's start with the plane. You know you're from a small town in Aus when you're in awe at the double-decker A380. It was my first time travelling on one, and I was incredibly impressed, especially with the great service offered by the airline.

The attendants were incredibly attentive, and the complimentary services were totally on point. 2 meals were included in this flight: dinner and breakfast. I had the dinner which was actually very nice compared to Australia's quality of airline food, it was beef with coconut rice, had a lovely sauce, served with warm bread, salad and a creamy dessert which was all absolutely delicious. The second meal was breakfast but I decided to skip it and have breakfast at Hamad Airport instead.

Landing at Hamad Airport, my bags were checked right through so I didn't have to worry about rechecking any bags in time like I did in Bali. I decided to have breakfast at one of the cafes in the airport which was very nice, I don't typically go for faux bacon but the beef bacon was surprisingly tasty. Everyone who knows me knows I love a good big breakfast, so that's what I had to go for!

After breakfast I decided to just wait at the gate until we were ready to board. The next leg of the journey was the last 7-hour flight to Paris. Again met with lovely service from the attendants and a pretty decent meal. This time I opted for the vegetarian ravioli for lunch, served again with a warm roll, fruit salad and brownie dessert. I was already pretty exhausted from the journey so far so the rest of this flight was mainly spent sleeping, apologies to anyone who had to suffer through the snoring.

Finally, I arrived in Paris, grabbed my bags and taken the metro to my homestay.

A long and exhausting journey to be sure, but worth every second.

Thanks for following along!

Stay tuned for all of my upcoming adventures, cooking, learning & growing in Paris.

Until next time, from Willoh.