What have you done today to make you feel proud?

Well, one week later and I think I am finally over the jet lag. The flight home was not too bad actually. From San Francisco to Sydney I had a seat behind the bulkhead which meant more leg room (YAY!) and I could even be a ruffian and put my (shoeless) feet up.  Managed to actually get some sleep.

The young couple sitting next to me were lovely. He was Canadian she was an Australian living in Vancouver. She was taking him for his first visit to the big brown land.  She and I spent an amusing few minutes during takeoff filling him in on how to be a Canadian in Australia. It was hilarious. He had a great sense of humour and provided some hysterical alternative meanings for the pictures on the aircraft safety card.  I considered throwing her off the plane and making off with him... sigh.

Anyhoo, the plane landed in Sydney and I cried. What a wuss. Then we all piled off the plane and I sprinted to the baggage claim to get my bags so I could check in at domestic and catch my connection to Perth. I had two hours. You would think that enough time yeah, expecially as I already had a boarding pass.  Clearly you have not been to Sydney airport lately.

What a @#$%&! #$%@#*&! mess.  First my bags were the last ones off I kid you not. Then I had to sprint to the other end of the terminal to transfer to domestic. The queue of people who wanted to do the same thing actually snaked from the check in counters back into the main terminal.  They only had four counter positions open for people trying to get on flights to all cities in Australia. There were hundreds of them.

Finally got through and bags checked in.Had to queue for customs.  Had to queue again for security.  There were two security check stations. Two.  TWO!!!!!  I looked at my watch and knew that my flight was nearing closure and I still had to get across the tarmac on the shuttle bus. What a total cockup Sydney airport is.  How did they manage during the Olympics???? How embarrassing was it to hear international visitors who had just had very long flights complaining about the facilities?    Bad airport. Bad. The thing is, you now have to go through Sydney when you fly in to the east coast no matter what city your destination is.  My bags had to come off and go through customs in Sydney and couldnt go through to Perth so I could go through customs there. What pillock thought of that?  Even people with a short flight to Melbourne had to do the same. Anyway, it ended up that I made the transfer to the domestic terminal and RAN full pelt to catch my flight.  Just made it.  I have not had to do that in any other place I have been in the world.  Catch up Australia. I mean seriously. Jeeeeeeez.

I had a whole row of seats to myself so stretched out and watched Perfume (Alan Rickman -  sigh), The Dead Girl, and half of Becoming Jane.  Ate food.

Jess and Here Be Dragons were at the airport to meet me. They were holding signs that read: "Welcome Dee. World Traveller" and "Dee, friend to the stars (in particular
Alan Rickman and Daniel Radcliffe)" 

I laughed out loud and hugged Jess and we both promptly burst into tears. LOL.

It has taken me a week to unpack, wash clothes, tidy the house and stop waking up at 2am starving hungry.  I think I am in the zone now.  I also immediately got sick with a cold that both Brenda in California and Jess at home had.  Also, have to get some tests done early next week for a worrying health problem that raised its ugly head when I was in San Fran. So, a bit of a downer there but hope that it turns out to be a false alarm.  I will be back at work on Tuesday and life will assume normal-like proportions from then on.  This is seriously depressing. I am already planning my next holiday abroad which is likely to be New Zealand as things go.

I will be flying to wherever December Boys premieres (Adelaide?) in September and might be going to Melbourne with The Fringed One and Here Be Dragons to see Order of the Phoenix in July.

Perth is small. It is soooooooooo far away from well, anywhere. I feel so out of it here.  Well, I did expect some effects from being away and seeing the world didn't I? 

LOL I had become surpirsingly used to going into a supermarket and seeing 65 varieties of everything.  Shopping back home was a bit of a shock.  However, we have what we need if not everything we want.

So the time has come to end this blog which is a bit sad really.  So to stop the girlie wah wah tears, I am going to start a new blog and post to it.  Enough weird stuff happens to me here to warrant a home-style place to post pics and stuff.  Once I have the thing built, I will post a link here and on Dan's site.

For now, the dream has come to an end. Thank you to all of you wonderful people. I had such a great time meeting with you all and seeing your cities.  You all have a room here if you become insane and want to visit the west coast of Australia.

Keep it real.
Dee