Monday 27 June 2011

So...I made it to Australia...finally

As some of you may be aware, my girlfriend is Australian and I'm English, well on the 22nd June I *finally* made it to see my girlfriend. Considering I started my journey on the 19th, you can understand the "finally".

Some witty banter on the toilet roll holder in Heathrow:


The flights...well not to mince words, the flights were absolute hell. Moreso than the last time I remember them. Started off in good cheer with a 40 minute (I think) BA flight from Manchester Airport to London, after all the teary goodbyes to my family, I was off and arrived all fine at London Heathrow for the 2 hour wait for my flight to Singapore which, by the way, was NOT told to me by the travel agent.

An illegal take-off photo:

I was under the impression that it was a direct flight to Melbourne and even asked her numerous times "So it definitely doesn't stop off anywhere before then?" but anyway, it happened and that was fine. Gave me a chance to stop off and have a couple of cigs in the greatest humidity I could have ever dreamed of.

The wing of the airbus:


On the flight there, I was stuck in a window seat all the way, even though I specified aisle and tried my luck asking the couple sitting next to me if we could switch which they obviously didn't want to (fair enough). However, it was a Qantas flight and even though I was in economy, there was a perfectly fine amount of legroom and even a little space between myself and the  window, so all was good and they were a nice couple whose name now escapes me (of course - see the soliloquy about "single serve friends on planes" in the awesome film "Fight Club" to understand where I'm coming from).

At one point in the 12-13 hour flight, I actually scurried out of the seat prison to the toilet and just stood around talking to people for an hour. Yes I was that toilet goblin who forced you to talk with him while he stretched on QF10. Good times, eh?

In Singapore I turned on my phone to find a message from my lovely girlfriend. "Aww that's nice" you may be thinking; it read as follows:

"Please text me whenever you get this. This bloody volcano is an arsehole."

Which...*isn't* really what you want to hear when you're in an airport, soon to take a plane to the very place that has been having disruptions due to the Chilean volcano...after some foraying back and forth of texts, I found out that the Aussie news was saying that all flights into Adelaide and out of Melbourne had been grounded for safety reasons. Oh joy.

Anyway, one 8-9 hour flight later with a screaming baby (but this time an aisle seat donated by a girl I met in the airport who was doing exactly the same thing as I was - working holiday visa to be with her partner - she preferred the window, so awesome, anyway, after that you hit the goddamn Aussie customs line. And by line I mean population as in it could legally constitute a separate state with how many people were in it. That took about half an hour of my life, but I got through no problems - no great big interview or anything (which I was expecting), just an "enjoy your stay" after exchanging a few friendly words with a passport inspector which cheered me up. Then the same huge queue to collect my bag and go one-by-one through the...bag...man? I don't know his proper title.

About 10 single serve friends later, I made it to the check-in desk which, as I expected, told me no flight to Adelaide. Got their information to reclaim my money and high-tailed it to the city-link bus to the coach station for a ticket to Adelaide. Of course, the "20 minute" bus journey became roughly 45 minutes and when I got to the bus station, I was told the soonest bus they had was the next morning (it was about 10:00am local time). Yeah. Awesome.

So, hotel down road, check in, get breakfast, watch TV blah blah, end up sleeping (for the first time in 2 days) at 3.30pm local time after a riveting episode of "Charlie's Angels". When I woke up, decided a smoke will make things better, and as I was having  one a guy across the road parked about 2 feet over the parking line in a clamping/fining area, mentioned he might want to back up a bit and received...a rather aggressive and unfriendly reaction (Aussies hate criticisms of their shit driving) The conversation was as follows:

"You might want to back up a bit there mate, you're a bit over the line."
"What?"
"You might want to back up a bit there."
"What?"
"You're over the line; you might want to back up a bit there."
"Do you want my keys and you can get in and park it?"
*confused*"...no?"
"Then why don't you shut the fuck up then?"

This is getting really long so I'll cut it short: one 11 hour bus journey later sitting next to a "psychic", Christian monarchist (the very antithesis of myself), I arrived to see my beautiful girlfriend on the 22nd June 2011.

A photo taken on the coach journey:


TL;DR
29hours 40minutes total travel time.
Flight cancelled, coach got.
Don't criticise an  Australian man's driving.
I got here.

Currently:
Awaiting my tax file number so I can legally work.
Awaiting response from Qantas for the outstanding $200(ish).
More in love now than ever.
Psyching myself up to deal with a long overdue Aussie summer...

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