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5 October 2013

australia // day one // departures + arrivals

hello from tomorrow! since we arrived on sunday, we've not stopped. this week has been a blur of meals with old friends, heaps of coffee, chauffeured sightseeing trips with my mum, and grabbing sleep (a lot) when we need to. right now, it's friday night, and it's the first time we've actually stopped in days... while i've got it fresh, let me tell you about our trip so far...

we headed to the airport after a few birthday drinks on friday night. about half way to heathrow, my overactive bladder kicked in, and i had to get off the tube to pee. i was freaking out, worried it would put us out, delay the journey - despite the fact we had over two hours to check in. i was worried also, as i'd tried to check in online earlier that day, but kept getting an error message... not cool. we were hoping to get a sneaky birthday upgrade, but i wanted to check us in early - just in case. when we finally made it to the airport and checked in, i dropped the old upgrade bombshell, and was met with a smile. "well of course we can upgrade you! our premium economy tickets are an extra 399 pounds each" *huge smile* needless to say, no upgrade was received.
when we boarded the enormous airbus, we headed for our seats. we passed the deluxe seats in business class. we passed the semi-deluxe seats in premium economy. we passed the first cabin of economy seats, and we still weren't at our seats. double checking the tickets confirmed our seat numbers; 88F and 88G. on we walked... until there was nowhere left to walk. we had reached the end of the plane; we'd run out of windowed seats, and we were only at row 87. looking at the middle row of seats, we realised there was one extra middle row; row 88. our seats, F and G were literally the last two seats on the plane. in the whole plane. the entire, 1000 seat plane.

the next 22 odd hours are one tired memory. don't ask me what films we watched; i have no idea. there were a ton i wanted to watch, but didn't watch any of them. we flew seven or so hours to dubai, then another 13 or so to melbourne. in melbourne we cleared customs, re-checked our bags, and headed to adelaide. when we left london, it was friday night. when we arrived in adelaide, it was sunday morning, and we'd barely had five hours sleep between us. we were shattered. we met my mum, and made our way 'home'. after a quick catch up with the folks and a desperate new sim card run, we grabbed a coffee with my aunt and uncle before finally giving in to a nap in the late afternoon. we woke a few hours later to the delicious scent of a roast dinner in the air. my clever mum had produced a giant roast for my homecoming meal, and I was too bloody tired to savour it completely. it was amazing though, that i do remember. (it was kangaroo, if you're interested. boyfriend loved it, and yes - he knew what he was eating!)
that night we were in bed by 8:30. i really believe we earned that sleep though, so i'm not even ashamed. day one was a blur of cabin pressure, multiple airplane meals and a hundred timezones. day one included bung fritz and iced coffee. day one lasted three days.

day one was bloody tiring.