Rome to Doha : Flight Home : 29 Oct 2008

This was a "sad" day, as we were preparing our stuff to head home after 2 weeks of mini-touring Paris, Barcelona, Venice and Rome. We left the hostel early after breakfast, and took the metro to Stazione Termini. The Leonardo Express train disembarked from the dedicated Line 24 to Fiumicino, also known as Leonardo Da Vinci Airport in roughly 30~40 minutes. Generally, the airport was full of people, very much like Changi Airport. We did not see any familiar skin type of faces, which made us felt that we are still very far from home.



We were 1 hr ahead of the check-in time, and had another 2 hrs to wait before boarding. We took the extra time to do VAT/IVA tax return, which was quite troublesome for first timer. Italy's VAT was roughly 8~12% depending on the goods purchased. For an LV Everfull M-size, this worked out to RM1.8k compared to RM2.4k before VAT return, and the price in KL was RM2.7k.

We flew off at 12 pm Rome time, and reached Doha at 7.30pm. The journey took around 4 hrs. Doha airport was kind of small one, very much like our old Subang airport. We saw many familiar type of faces such as Malay, Chinese, Indian, Nepali, Filipino and Indonesian in the airport area. I thought this could be the same everywhere else in the Middle East, whereby the local people are tourists, while the foreigners are workers.



Since our transit flight was more than 5 hrs from our touchdown time in Doha, we were entitled for a free meal at the cafeteria. Even the coupon dispenser lady looked like a Malaysian. The dinner was just plain rice with curry vege, but I dare to say that it was one of the best meal we had throughout the trip. We eventually got to eat something familiar, which was white rice after we last had 14 days ago.



At last after a 5 hrs wait, it was our turn to board the plane for our flight back to KL at 1.30am. We touchdown at KLIA at 3pm Malaysian time, after a 10 hrs journey. Below are the list of things that could make us feel nostalgic.

Things we liked:
1) Tour Eiffel
2) Arc de Triomphe
3) Paris weather
4) Temple Expiotari de la Sagrada Familia
5) Paella
6) Venice Pizza
7) Gelato
8) Tiramisu
9) Colosseo
10) Rome capuccino