home. part 2.

hi honey, i'm home!

and before i regale you with a tone of posts about some of the cool stuff i did/saw/felt while i was in europe, i just have to have a self-centered whinge about my hellish trip home.

technically i missed out on friday the 13th - i left paris at 4pm on thursday 12th feb and arrived in melbourne at 11:30 on saturday 14th feb - but you wouldn't know it by the shit luck i had.

firstly, thanks to snow and ice on the runway at heathrow, the flight from paris was delayed by an hour and a half. then i had to share a flight with 20 spanish teenagers who clogged up the luggage compartments, took their time about finding their seats, then clapped and sang and flirted with each other at volume 11, the whole way. it wasn't as fun as it sounds.

from there i just made my connecting flight in london, but thankfully we sat in the (unairconditioned) plane for an hour and a half before leaving while the plane was de-iced, a tug summoned and the queue for take-off got longer.

then, in bangkok, after 20 hours in transit, we were delayed again because the incoming crew delayed getting to the airport. joy.

two hours late arriving into sydney, while a can of some disinfectant crap was sprayed through the cabin so our tics and lice didn't spread to precious australian soil (despite a whole industry of introduced cloven-hoofed animal species), we got to sit in a merry-go-round in the sky holding pattern in sydney, as per usual.

then i had to deal with customs in sydney, prior to my last flight to melbourne. unlike everywhere else in the world, in australia, we're so stressed about what gets brought into the country that one has to go through customs at the first port, not transferring through customs at your final destination.

which meant a massive queue, rude staff, chaos baggage terminal and a haul-ass to transfer onwards to melbourne.

just made that flight, almost home, stoked to finally get off a plane and out of an airport, when industrial action happened.

qantas aren't treating their staff properly (surprised?) so the baggage handlers used their democratic right and halted production. the whole company shat itself and i only got my bags 3 hours ago, 36 hours after landing.

total transit time: 36 hours.
total time without luggage: 72 hours.
total awesome good memories for the 3 weeks prior: timeless.

i know, probably not that bad in the whole scheme of things, but it felt shit at the time. besides, it's my blog and i'll whine self-indulgently if i want to.

image credit: davesag from flickr, who obviously had the same experience i did.



PS - i still don't have my mobile happening, so for those about to rock, hang on for a couple of days.