A year ago I rushed through rain drenched suburban sidewalks, only to find myself in a slapstick comedy slipping spectacularly onto my ankle, spraining it for the welcome to my Baltics holiday.

This year I was determined not to start the trip off with any drama. I slowed my walking pace down with sheer mental willpower, the weather was forecast for 95% rain, but instead nature gave me a shiny happy sun above. Perfect, no weather issues this time!

Arriving at the International terminal and checking in, getting through the baggage scan and human scan, and out into the duty free monstrosity took all of 10mins. Perfect, how nice it is to have a care free start to a holiday!

The Qantas gates were under renovations, so the flight staff didn’t have modern technologies, like a loud speaker, and instead resorted to yelling out when people could board. I got flagged at the ticket check; I’d been moved to a different seat. Sure, no problem, a chair is a chair, right!

The seat belt was broken. The end of the buckle had found itself trapped under the chair. I couldn’t get it out, it was stuck in there good. The air stewardess couldn’t unlodge it either and called maintenance. The nice Kiwi couple sitting next to me gave it a go too, but still the buckle wouldn’t budge.

Eventually a box like man arrived, fought furiously with the chair, teeth bared and grunting, and the belt surrendered. The buckle was free! Okay, one drama for the trip. Should be smooth sailing from here.

An hour later, still at the gate…

“This is the Captain, we’ve run into a problem where fuel has entered a tank where it shouldn’t be. If you look out to your right, you’ll see a Toyota Hilux with a pump removing the fuel. This should only take 15mins.”

Half an hour later…

“This is the Captain, there’s more excess fuel that expected. We should be another 20mins to finish the task.”

Half an hour later…

“This is the Captain, sorry about the delay, we’re ready to taxi to the run way for take off.”

There was cheering from the passengers. We’re all in high spirits, and the flight staff are joking along with us about the delay.

After taxiing to the runway…

“This is the Captain, audible sigh, I’m so sorry about this, but we’re now showing a brake error and will need to taxi back to a gate for repairs.”

We arrive back at the gate. The nanna’s in the row next to me start making jokes about opening the whisky. The flight stewardess agrees, she needs a drink too.

power goes out

“This is the Captain, I can’t believe this is happening, but the external power has been tripped and we’ll have power back soon. I know how frustrating this is… for all of us.”

power is restored

“This is the Captain, after the power was restored and all systems rebooted, we now (you can hear his soul is breaking) have an error on the fuel pump. Repair crew are on their way.”

After spending 5 hours on the tarmac, they finally decided to disembark everyone from the plane. As we left the cursed plane and were given gift vouchers, which everyone took to mean, go buy a drink or two (the nanna’s got hammered at the bar).

The 2:40pm Qantas flight to Singapore left Sydney at 9:30pm. As the flight crew boarded the plane, we all cheered for them. It’s as frustrating for them as it is for us, and in true Aussie fashion we all just joked and had some fun with it.

After arriving in Singapore, my flight details updated and a looked over my new route, The connecting flight to Dubai with Emirates had been changed to a flight to Doha with Qatar. I had another 5 hours layover in Singapore, and 7 hours in Doha.

All up, I basically lost a day and half in Armenia. The worst part was Doha, 7 hours with no bars or anything really interesting. I did stumble on a Gordan Ramsey Pizza and Hamburger restaurants, and my eye balls bulged when I saw there was a bar hidden within.

The cheese burger was delicious, truly really good. And a bottle of Corona. I stared at the menu and loaded up xe.com, I should check what the exchange rate is. Oh god. Oh no. I checked it a hundred times. For a cheese burger and a bottle of beer, I paid $70 ($50 for the burger, $20 for the beer). Screw you Gordan Ramsey!

On the flight to Yerevan, Armenia, I had two things worrying me. First was my luggage, with the change of airlines I was preparing myself for the worst case scenario that I’d be standing alone at the baggage claim watching the empty carousel go by without my bag. That fear was unwarranted, my bag eventually appeared and the whole airport erupted into celebration congratulating me.

However more worrisome was the hotel. In Doha I was looking up contact information for them, as they hadn’t replied to my email letting them know I’d be arriving after midnight now. What came up in the search were multiple reviews of people being scammed after being told their rooms weren’t ready and being moved to a different hotel.

At 2am I arrived at the hotel, and sure enough, the concierge handed me a phone with the manager on the line. He’d been trying to contact me (an obvious lie), as there was a problem with my room and I’d be taken to a different hotel. Sigh.

I tried to argue, but it was 2am and I’d barely slept for 2 days. So they shipped me off in a Yandex (basically the Russian Uber) to different hotel… that was clearly closed. After the Yandex driver called the original hotel, off we went again to another hotel, which was at least open, and the concierge checked me in.

I was asked how I was going to pay. I briefly argued with him the other hotel would be paying, he backed down, and I crashed out in quite nice room. It was now 3am and I couldn’t sleep.

At 6am I started looking for other hotels. Finding a really nice place near the centre of the city, I booked it, got myself cleaned up, and headed downstairs to reception. I wanted to get this sorted out with them who is paying for the night.

After waiting almost an hour for someone to appear at reception, I gave up, I was so over all this bullshit. I left the key on reception, along with the name of the hotel, and caught a Yandex to the new hotel.

Okay, finally, it was happening – now I can properly start the trip through the Caucasus, starting here in the capital of Armenia, Yerevan!