And it’s all over now….baby blue

Yep…the fun part is all over, just the serious writing up to be done and sadly, closing down the blog. My life ain’t exciting enough to run one full time. The last couple of days in Stavanger I took fairly easy. The weather stayed great, the teachers stayed on strike so kids home, and generally all pretty relaxed… I miss it!

The flight home was a long one….leaving lunchtime from Stavanger was a nice change to the usual pre dawn departures but it didn’t start off real well – plane was an hour late leaving. But it didn’t matter – there was a long wait for the connection at Frankfurt which, considering it’s such a hub, is one of the world’s most boring airports. Nothing to do except browse a few of those uber-expensive label shops - do westerners ever actually buy anything in these places?? I had something to eat, wandered off and left my cabin bag by the table for about an hour before I realized…surprised I didn’t spark a major security alert, evacuation of the airport etc! When I suddenly realised and dashed back, someone was sitting at the table and had just pushed my bag to one side – so much for concerns over global terrorism – and also a good indicator of people’s honesty etc – was very impressed.

Finally off on Singapore Airlines – they are just great – the contrast with United couldn’t more striking. Plane was ¾ full and it was as good a flight as you can expect in the el-cheapo seats. Stopped in Singapore for a few hours – now Changi Airport has it all sorted out. As well as a million shops (many of which are actually interesting) there are all sorts of other services – I went and had a foot massage and reflexology – is great after a long flight and really relaxing. Trip to Oz was uneventful though we arrived early and had to circle for 20 mins or so because of Sydney curfew – fair enough I suppose but doesn’t seem quite so good when you are sitting in the plane just wanting to get home! Through Immigration and Customs the quickest ever – Customs especially – they just whizzed me through – must be my honest face! Outside to a mile-long queue to get to the Domestic Terminal – just what you want after 30 hours traveling. Qantas finally organised a couple of extra buses and whizzed us around (was freezing cold and pouring rain in Sydney) to the Domestic but we had to book in again. Actually managed to catch the scheduled flight – just – but, as it transpired, my bag wasn’t quite so lucky!

So, arrived to a cold but dry Canberra and met by T which was nice. Waited for bag…nothing…turns out it was still in Sydney…bugger, as it had my house keys in there… Ah well, silly you more-or-less is the supportive message I get from Qantas when I explain predicament! So homeward bound and with a screwdriver manage to open bathroom window (now made more secure I hasten to add!) – that’s all very well – but have you tried climbing up through a bathroom window…not so easy. I ended up hanging half in, half out – head first staring at the toilet and the bath. Finally a big push and head over heals and landed in the bath – definitely the better choice. Was surprised I didn’t obviously hurt anything…however, a couple of days later my back is killing me and I spend the next few weeks visiting the chiropractor every other day.

And so, it was all over….back to reality, sadly! I thought I would be fed up with traveling and pleased to be home. Was pleased in a way but also, certainly wasn’t fed up with the traveling…could have gone on a lot longer! That's it - I think..... Here endeth the blog.