FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Sydney to Sofia

We made it. After more than 35 hours of travel we are finally in Bulgaria. Hurray!

When I last stopped writing, we were in Singapore awaiting our 11 hour flight to Istanbul. That flight went smoothly and we arrived at the very new and very massive new airport in Istanbul at around 8am. As our bags were already checked all the way through and we had our boarding passes for our next flight, all we had to do was go through security for international transfers and we were off to the iGA Lounge (part of priority pass collection). The lounge was huge with nice open sections and views of both the airplanes and the excellent variety of shops. The food though was only average. We managed to while away 6.5 hours and finally hopped on to our very last flight on Turkish airlines in...gasp...economy! Fortunately the flight was not full and we could spread out and recline to our hearts content on the seemingly short 1.5 hour flight.

The most we got to see of Istanbul!

How big is this lounge?!?! This was just one side

We played a few games...

The middle "dining" section

The other side faced the shops

Shops!

A rude shock in economy. "What? Where's the charging outlet mum?!?!"

At least we got food!

We were greeted by a snowy scene on landing and to our pleasant surprise. The airport experience was extremely quick! It took less than 15 minutes after getting off the plane to go through immigration, collect our bags, exchange some money, go to the toilet, yell at the children, take out jackets, look for our transfer voucher and get on our private van. The driver was very friendly and tried to comminicate even with minimal English. The children were ecstatic when he told them there was wifi in the van! And our ride included a bottle of water each. We paid around AUD22 with intui travel. Bargain! It only took about 20 minutes to get to our hotel, the Hilton Sofia, where Oma and Opa were waiting for us in the lobby. Another pleasant surprise awaited us upon check in with a free upgrade to the executive room! Woohoo! We briefly said hello to Nana and Grandpa before heading back to our rooms. As happy as we were to finally be there, we were exhausted. Time to call it a night.