In less than 24 hours, we passed through the USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Even though it was only through the airports for Canada and New Zealand, we were definitely hearing the different accents of each one, not to mention some French added in for good measure. I liked the Kiwi accent the best although maybe part of it was the very amusing Air New Zealand safety video. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a safety video that would have been X-rated but for some timely body part blurring.
Eric weathered the trip pretty well all things considered. He’s napping now (no surprise there!) and I’ll probably get him up later so he can go to bed. ;-) Thanks so much for all your prayers – Eric is improving in spite of all the travel, the problems we encountered on each leg of the trip were solved without upsetting the next leg of the trip, the flights were smooth, and the landings exceptionally ordinary (my favorite kind!).
Because everyone likes to talk about their itty bitty travel problems, here we go:
Seattle to Vancouver – our three bag tags were printed out with final destinations of Vancouver, Auckland, and Auckland. Huh? Eventually we got it straightened out to be Sydney for all of them, but it sure makes you wonder what gremlin was running their system!
Vancouver to Auckland – somehow we ended up with four reservations in the system instead of two. Don’t ask me how, but this caused us to end up with no assigned seats at all (wouldn’t you think we could have chosen between the set of four?). Especially since we had “confirmed” two of the seats just two days earlier. The guy “got” us exit aisle row seats which sounded great until we found out that was where the queue for the four lavatories was just about ALL NIGHT LONG. When there wasn’t a queue for the lavatories, we had the great “privilege” of watching people decide to demonstrate all their stretching exercises right in our face. Eric had the aisle seat and lost count of the number of times people stepped on his feet. Ugh! All I know is a seat is a seat if it gets you where you need to go so we’ll stick with that.
Auckland to Sydney – we were waiting to deplane on arrival in Auckland when we hear an announcement that “Eric Easterbrook should check in with the ground staff”. Uh oh. It turned out that they couldn’t find Eric’s Visa in the system. Since he had already traveled three times using that Visa, we knew it was in there, so it was a bit of a puzzle. After a little investigation, the ground staff realized his passport had been incorrectly entered somewhere along the way. It did make us wonder why this wasn’t noticed until the very last flight of our entire trip – maybe it was the gremlins again.
Sydney to Salamander Bay – as luck would have it (or should it be wouldn’t have it?) our bags were essentially the last ones off the plane from Auckland, so we stood there waiting and waiting while woefully watching the line for customs start to snake from one end of the baggage area to the other. The baggage gods can be so mean, but at least the bags did show up! When we finally had our turn at the customs 20 questions food and prescriptions game, we passed with flying colors and then we were out the door into HEAT! Whoa, that warmth and sun were a jolt! Our friend Ron successfully picked us up and then drove us by his boyhood home not too far from the Sydney airport. It was interesting listening to what life was like growing up in Sydney and how things have changed – like fishing from the pier before there was an Opera House. After that we left Sydney for what should have been a 2½ hour drive home. We ran into some serious traffic outside Newcastle (what happened to our idyllic and quiet neck of the woods?). We finally got through that only to run into another backup on Nelson Bay Road which is the only way to get to the bay area and home. Even though we ended up getting back more than an hour later than we thought we were going to, we were counting our blessings because the traffic coming out of the bay area was completely nuts. The line going the other direction snaked down Nelson Bay Road for miles! Apparently most of Sydney’s residents were either leaving or coming to the bay area today.
Pam (Ron’s wife) had a great lunch waiting for us when we got back and then she and Ron took off for their next house-sitting stay. Pam was sharing that in the last 20 months they have moved something like 48 times! I can’t even imagine that especially since it involved the United States, India, and Australia. They will probably be moving back to the states near the end of March and their hope is they can stay put for a while! We will surely miss Ron and Pam, but know that this is the next step in the Lord’s plan for them.
The beach here is a little busier than before we left – maybe 20 people or so and a couple hopeful pelicans. It does seem really weird to go from the Pacific Northwest green, cold, and wet to this blue, warm, and dry place in such a short time. It’s also a little hard to decide where home is again. Did I go home for Christmas or did I just get back home today? If home is where the heart is, I’m thinking I must have left a chamber or two in Seattle because I’m feeling pretty confused.
I do know I’m already missing family, friends, and some of the comforts of home (the Seattle one). We sure could use some visitors, hint, hint, hint!
No comments:
Post a Comment