Today is the day we head to Bali and I've been beyond excited to go, not just because I absolutely LOVE Bali but because this will be my first international trip with my dad & brother. On top of that, neither of them have ever left Australia before so I have been extra excited to share in this adventure with them.

My dad, step-mum Viki and Brother Luke arrived at my house this morning to pick me up on route to Sydney Airport. I loaded my stuff into the tray of dad’s new Ford Ranger and hopped in the back seat, next to my brother. We then continued the hour and a half journey in mostly silence because I was still annoyed at them from an argument we had the night before! As we got closer to the Airport though, the excitement must’ve started to kick in because we all slowly began talking to each other once again - mostly, we just couldn’t wait to get the flight out of the way and be in Seminyak, relaxing in our beautiful villa!

Once we got to the Airport, we quickly parked the Ute and boarded the courtesy bus for a short ride to the International Airport. Once we arrived at the International terminal, the fun started...It took forever for us to get through customs, not because the lines were unusually long but because Viki, Luke & myself ended up waiting AGES for my dad to be cleared through the gates.

Like i said, my dad has never left the country before and has no idea about customs (& that you are not allowed to smile when they take your photo!) It literally took three different attempts to get a photo of my dad without smiling, to successfully get him through customs. With the customs process being fairly automated, dad kept having to wait for the security officers to come past and reset the camera before it could be re-attempted. My dad was slightly confused and seemed to become increasingly embarrassed as was swearing black and blue he hadn’t smiled each time lol. My step-mum was getting super annoyed with him about it and of course, my brother and I were just in fits of laughter as we watched on.

Finally we all made it through customs and made our way down to the gate, not before having a quick drink at a bar close by. Soon enough, it was time to get our boarding passes out ready to board the plane for our 5 hour journey across to Bali. Of course we all made it through the boarding gate, with the exception of my dad ha. When attempting to board the plane, Dad had presented his luggage tag to the flight attendant instead of his boarding pass & again, we all just lost our shit in fits of laughter as my dad threw his hands up in the air. I bet he was thinking he wouldn't successfully get into Bali, given how much trouble he was having just leaving Australia, ha. To my dad’s credit, the boarding pass muck up was not his fault, my step mum was minding the passes and accidentally handed him the luggage tag instead. It was still hilarious though!

My dad is more of a road trip kinda person and was not looking forward to being on a plane for the 5 hour journey to Bali, even though I did my best to assure him it would go pretty fast once he sinks into the many selections of movies available. Unfortunately, throughout the flight the backseat screens couldn’t get any signal and everyone was left on a 5 hour flight with no TV shows or movies to watch. It did suck and wasn’t the best introduction to flying internationally for my dad or brother but thankfully it was only a 5 hour flight and we managed to get through it with the content on our phones/iPads.

Once we arrived in Bali, the excitement didn’t stop. We had hoped off the plane and were making our way to the customs counter when my dad turned around asking where his prescription glasses had gone. In a panic, thinking he had left them on the plane we raced back through the terminal to the flight attendant that was seeing everyone off the plane and asked her if we could go back on to check for the glasses…Only to realise the missing glasses were on my dad’s head the whole time. Ahh, geeze. I don’t know if it was all the nerves of leaving the country or the fact my dad’s brain was just not firing on all signals today but either way, it has definitely been one experience after another and a whole load of laughs already just to get here, ha.

We passed through customs pretty easily, thank god! Collected our luggage then made our way out of the airport. I stopped by the phone plans to grab myself an International sim card, my dad & brother stopped by the airport convenience shop to grab some mandatory Bin-Tangs (of course!) and we made our way out to find our drivers.

We discovered through conversation on the plane that there had been a slight miscommunication between everyone regarding how we were getting to our villa. Our Villa was kind enough to organise free transport to Seminyak for us however Viki, who has been to Bali previously missed that memo and organised for her usual driver to pick us up. Unfortunately that meant we had to split up into two different cars to get back to our villa, it sucked a little because I would have loved to be there to see my dad’s face as he was driving through another country for the first time and to see his reaction at the villa when they pulled up but there wasn’t much we could do to change it now.

We arrived to Villa Lemon, after dad & Viki did. This was thanks to Luke realizing that he had bought a whole heap of Bin-tangs that weren’t twist top to open (thankfully our driver was well rehearsed in pulling over to use his seatbelt to open up beers!). Luke also managed to spot a Burger King that we just HAD to try apparently and waited ages in the drive through for the food to be ready. To be honest, I’m not even sure why we waited so long because after a few bites into my burger realising it just didn’t taste right, I turned the car light on to see the chicken was pink inside. Yuck!

Not too long after this we arrived at Villa Lemon, it was so beautiful and was really great to see my dad so stoked with villa also. Given that this was his first trip outside of Australia and that my dad had been quite adamant he wouldn’t like Bali (we are only here due to a Wedding), I wanted to make sure that he was super happy and comfortable with where we are staying and that he has the best trip possible, especially since it would be his birthday whilst we are here!

After a quick vomit poolside from me (I think due to the raw chicken!) we spent the rest of the night settling into our villa, chilling out by the pool and very quickly running out of beers! Of course this wasn’t okay, so Luke went out to our villa hosts and asked if he could jump on the back of their scooter with them so we could restock. 15 minutes later, the party was back on.

Even though our flight got in at about 10pm, it was still a really nice way to settle into our Villa on our first night in Bali, especially after the hiccups we had with dad trying to get out of Australia and into Indonesia lol. I think this villa with our own private pool has impressed my dad loads and I can’t wait for Bali to continue to win him over throughout the coming days as we continue to explore this beautiful country.