A long trip home

So, I'm finally home. But getting home was far more difficult than I anticipated.
Ed sent me to the airport - I had left lots of time, which was cool. The flight left at 9.25pm, and I'd arrived by 7.45pm - plenty of time! But when I arrived, the terminal was full of people, people were sitting all over, not necessarily in a line. There was general chaos, the board flashed flights that were 'Delayed' or (even worse) 'Cancelled'.

So, it turns out that a Telstra cable to T3 (where the Virgin Blue terminal is set up) was cut and all computer-operated systems were not functioning. Manual check-ins, serious delays, too many people to comprehend at any one time. All we could do was wait. And wait we did. And we waited until they announced that there were only going to be four (later two, as two were cancelled due to airport curfews) flights (operated by Virgin Blue) leaving Melbourne Airport. Ours was not one of them. :(

So then, we had to proceed downstairs to see what accommodation we could be fixed up with. There was a massive line. Apparently they were trying to accommodate four to five thousand people. That is a lot of people!
But somehow we managed to find ourselves at the front of a second line, and put our names down on the accommodation list. Then there was more waiting. Lots of it. There were all sorts of phone calls (many!) and eventually they started calling out people's names to board buses to head to the hotel. This all took a long time, and at close to midnight, was pretty draining. A busload of us were taken to The Sebel in Albert Park which turns out is a 4.5 star hotel - can't complain! Admittedly, we took some photos of the hotel, because it's been a while since I stayed in a hotel (and such a nice one at that!). We made sure not to touch anything from the mini-bar (ridiculously over-priced!), had an awful view of the next building, but the bed was comfortable, there were fluffy white towels and the only thing not provided was a toothbrush. But at about 1.45am, I finally crashed into bed.

There wasn't much sleep to be had either, unfortunately...back home, my mum was crazily trying to reschedule a flight and I got woken up by a text that arrived at close to 4am telling me that she'd managed to get us on a 9.25am flight - exactly 12 hours after the original flight. Which meant getting to the airport well before the hotel's check-out time of 11am. I wasn't all too smart about it all - it would have been nice to use the hotel's facilities, but was keen to avoid a hot Melbourne day. We got to the airpot at about 7.15am (far too early after a frantic night!). We ate Macca's for breakfast (gross, but wonderful simultaneously), sat around, stood in a line for a while and were delayed (again!)because:
i) the previous flight was delayed;
ii) the flight was over-booked and they had to ask for volunteers to get off that flight
iii) we waited for other passengers from a connecting flight (which was delayed) to get on the plane.

But finally we were off to Perth. Finally. It was such a relief to be back on the other side of the country. Even though I really love Melbourne and the people there; it would have been hugely awkward to have said bye to everybody and then ring people up and murmur, "Ummm...I'm sitll here..." Hah.

So that is the saga that was.


In previous news (in concise manner):
1. Moving out was painful (for my back) and a bit hectic, but thankfully worked out in the end.
2. Tasmania was wonderful. A fantastic experience - learning, musical, trip-wise. Will have to go back there to actually go on holiday. Walked places (muchly!), walked hills (very large ones..). Made friends (yay!). Had a cool piano tutor (amazing woman!).
3. Lived out of suitcase for another week and a bit. Amess St was fun. Reherasals were good. Wasn't 'home' much.
4. Masters Recitals: horn one was good; page-turning was fun, not being able to play electronics due to technical glitches were not so fun...
Vocal one was also good - much more involved! But went really well. Love French.
5. Wedding was good, as was reception. Fun times were had by all.
6. Was good to see two friends from Perth in Melbourne. Yay!

Am yet to catch up on all the sleep from this year...but hopefully it is getting there. Have some appointments (you know, parent-organised) but apart from that, will hopefully be learning some concerti, sleeping, going to the beach, possibly learning guitar....