Its 4:30am (Dubai time) we are an hour away from landing in Dubai Airport. It feels like we have been flying for a week! Emirates are great and having your own tv in the seat in front is a god send. There are about 900 different channels, games, movies etc. I have watched The pursuit of Happyness, and Dejavu. Trevor has watched Wild Hogs, Holiday, Bugs Life and played Black Jack as well as looking through the information channels about the aeroplane and Dubai. There is a wicked sun rise happening here. By my watch it is about 12.30 Sunday lunch time in New Zealand

The six hour flight to Rome didn’t seem too long although the in flight entertainment was not as good as the long haul flight to Dubai. I slept most of it. We sat beside a couple on their honeymoon – not sure what nationality they were but definitely Middle Eastern. She was wearing a head scarf and had lots of henna tattoos – they were off on a cruise – couldn’t quite make out where – They had a honeymoon cake that someone had given them and they didn’t like it – he tried to give it to us but we felt that we had been eating all the way from New Zealand to Rome – so a cake was just too much.

We arrived at Rome expecting to take ages to get through customs etc. We got off the plane, walked towards baggage claim – were stopped at a door by an Italian wanting to look at our passport, he gave a cursory glance, we collected our luggage and that was it!

We were greeting by a lovely young Italian driver complete with suit, sunglasses and Mercedes! He proceeded to drive us from the airport to our hotel at a speed of, on average, 150kms/hr while most of the time speaking on his mobile!. We arrive safely. It is about 31 degrees.

Our Hotel room is the size of our bathroom at home with a tiny wee ensuite. It is lovely and cool and really quiet the whole building is stone. We went for a walk around and found this fountain just around the corner. We refreshed our hot feet in it.