Woke up at 8am in Grandma's bed, in my old bedroom, in
the basement of 123 Thrasher Road, likely for the last time. Finished packing
ahead of schedule and under weight limits. I must be missing something if I am
this lucky. I can't go for a sleep over without 3 bags and forgetting something
important so to have this be simply means something must have gone horribly
wrong I just know it. Left home at 10am made it to the hotel by the airport in
Toronto in great time, dropped mom and the bags off and headed to my apartment
to get the last of my junk. Matt was there to help, =) unexpectedly, before he
was supposed to be in class but had skipped because he work up "feeling
like death" but something tells me at least his level of illness may have
been a little contrived. This time I
didn't cry, but smiled and laughed knowing I had people in Canada waiting for
me to return with open arms and eager hearts.
We went back to the hotel, collected mom and when to the airport on the hotel shuttle, as it was free and after we placed the last of my crap in the CRV, via my father and I's amazing Tetris skills, there wasn't enough room for the three of us anyway. Waited in the wrong line for a bit until we found the right one, however when I say that, I mean my dad waited in line with all of my luggage as my mom and I bought AUS$. (Which is now officially called the Roo, {it's not really but I intend on starting that trend, can you imagine? It be great for tourism: "G'day, Mate! Can you spare a roo? I'll pay you back in a fortnight!" [and saying fortnight is not me being old Englishy, it's actually a thing down here, seriously.]}) When we got through check in, mom filled out my customs form for me and we said out goodbyes. We'd gotten in line to go through the doors of US customers (my first flight was to LA) but it was moving far too fast for a real goodbye so stepped off to the side and had a little cry. Finally I walked through the doors ready to be interrogated for being a Russian/Canadian double agent trying to infiltrate Los Angles while Mom stayed at the doors for as long as she could see me, waving every time I turned around. I miss her already and I tried very hard not to cry.
We arrived at the airport at about 2:50pm, I had the
aforementioned exchange and made my way through customs and baggage check,
sending my bags off with a longing "Come back to me!" (They didn't
listen) as they were carried away into the dewy decimal like system of terror
and secrecy what is the airport baggage system (for further understanding of
this comment see: my crippling fear of libraries.) I had my carry on x-rayed
and walked through the beeping archway without issue. I did not get frisked or
wanded or body scanned or strip searched
and after all the fuss I've heard about it I'm very disappointed.
All this took a grand total for 40 minutes. I'm now at
my gate, waiting for my flight with a bunch of people who are waiting to the
flight that takes off 2 hours before mine from the same place. I mean great
timing but how does that help me at all? I now have all this time to kill in an
airport, the ~happiest place on earth~! So what do I do? As any good Canadian
student would in such a situation and just because it happened to be at the
bottom of the stairs when I got out of customs - beer pub.
I sat down and
ordered a beer (the most fitting brand for this situation if you will note by
the photo), one that ended up costing me $10.75 but the only thing I'm going to
need CDN money for the next 5 months is showing it off to Australians anyway so
nbd. The guy sitting next to me saw me taking pictures of myself and offered to
take one for me, it didn't turn out and we just ended up talked about his job
and where he was going, he gave me his card "incase (I) needed any mining
work done while down under." I smiled and took the card and willed him internally
to stop picturing himself drilling me.
After he left I read a well wished happy thought and cried
again, the waitress told me not to because I was going on an adventure. That's
what everyone has told me and of course I know that, but it's still hard to
leave the ones you love. I have all the strength in the world to be here and to
go on this adventure but it's hard to leave. I bought a magazine (which I will
begin to read once my computer dies) and racked up my Canadian phone bill. Then
I met up with another York exchanger named Lori who offered me a ride from the
airport once we got to Melbourne. We had a nice little chat and boarded in
plane, she was sitting a few rows behind me and on the other side of the cabin.
Once we had all got settled it was 5 mins to take off, I sent my last texts
made my last phone call, shaking and gasping for air, turned off my phone
and... "Our apologies ladies and gentlemen; there is a mechanical error
with the plane and we must take it into the hanger for repair. Please exit the
plane go back inter the gate and we will get you to a new one." ~Great.~
Just when I'm all settled. Get off, get shoed off to another gate and our off
the tarmac time is pushed back by an hour. Take off was fine, I clutched
everything I had close to me and now have the imprint of a D20 in my palm.
The kids sitting behind me (aged 15) were also going
to Melbourne on exchange, I'm sorry did you not notice their age? 15! They're
not even old enough to get their drivers permit and they're going on exchange
in Gr 10/11 I couldn't believe it. I certainly couldn't have done it at age 15,
but they had each other and mummy and daddy's money (private school, you see)
so they were not so impacted by what they were doing. They were also on the
same connecting flight so we at least knew someone else was stressed by the
delay of our departure.
The guy sitting next to me was very nice, we chatted, his
name was Robert but I didn't find that out until the end of the flight, in my
head I'd named him Phil. I didn't realize why until half way through when I
remembered he said he was from the Philippines. I thought it best not to tell
him of my internal inadvertent racial error. He shared his very expensive pizza
with me which was very nice but made me feel very sick. I got to use the
bathroom in first class and had business men and trophy wives sneer at me for
entering their sacred ground. Having used the bathroom for the pleeplanders
later in the flight these are the things that I can tell you about the
differences:
1st Class
Smells like lady parts (really, not bad lady parts, just very specifically,
female naughty bits)
Has hand soap and moisturizer
Coach
Smells likes, just spilled beer
Just soap
That's it. So if you only want 1st for the bathroom,
don't bother. Get back here with us nobodies.
I also got some acetaminophen for the headache I'd had
since the gate because I'd not eaten anything for days due to nerves and
sickness and the Molson went right to my head. I felt much better after that
and the rest of the flight when long but fine.
The on board movie selection was without excitement. I
watch Arthur (the Russell Brand one) a
couple of episodes of something but I honestly cannot remember what due to my
head hurting so badly and some of Real Steel. Nothing to report other then why
did it take us this long to find Helen Mirren, would should have had her for
years.
Made it to LA, the kids behind me asked for my help
getting on the next plane and it was nice to be needed/thought responsible/like
I knew what I was doing. Re checked in with QANTUS (was on Air Canada) gave
them my baggage information (as Air Canada told me to do) went through customs
again (had my favourite bracket break, AGAIN,
just as I was taking it off to go through the metal beeping arch, and
spent 15 minutes on my hands and knees picking it all up again with the help of
3 border patrol officers (looks like they had a lot to do) and went off to find
food. LAX is MASSIVE, it's terrifying large but for some reason, unlike sensible
Canadian airports when you get though customs to wait at the gate, instead of
all of the food places being at your finger tips, there were none. None, okay,
well one but it was crap and I spent 10 dollars on a salad I ended up eating half
of and picking through the rest to find anything edible. There was very little
after that and then it was right on board the most massive plane I've ever
seen. Actually the most massive commercial jet anyone has ever seen: the A380. See below.
This is not exactly good picture of me and okay you can't really see the plane but I post it
to show you the forced smile and utter terror and reluctance in my eyes. It has
two stories of seating arrangement and they still crammed us in like sardines.
Above me were the super important people that got to lay down as they slept, I
am so jealous. The in flight movie selection was much better in this plane, I made
mental lists of films to watch and expected to get sick of watching things very
quickly even though it seemed like a good time. However halfway through Drive I fell asleep for 10 of the 15
hours. They had to physically shake me awake for dinner. The guy next to me commented
on what a heaver sleeper I must be. I blame my dj sized headphones and the anti
stress sleeping aid I took. :P After what was actually a pretty solid airplane
dinner I put on a playlist Evan made for me called "dusty...the trails"
and fell asleep to Kings of Leon and The Kooks. When I work up we had about 3.5
hours left to go, had another solid airplane food breakfast (to clarify, if I
had paid money for this at a restaurant I would have been displeased but in
terms of food prepared in the air (or at least kept warm while flying,) this
was pretty impressive, plus it had mushrooms and bacon and that is how you will
get me to fall in love with you. From there finished Drive (enjoyed it), watched
The Iron Lady (also enjoyed it but have a lot to say about it, in depth discussion
to come) and the watched the first 3 episodes of the new season of Two and a Half
Men jut to see what they did with it after Charlie Sheen was let go (which I
also have a lot to say about cause I think that was a dumb choice). Then I
arrived. Hoarry! Look! We landed (people don't clap anymore when planes land,
what is that?)! I'm in Australia! I did it! it actually happened! it wasn't just
something I talked about or something I said just to have something to say, I
actually did it!
WOW.
There's no
place like...
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