Things I am Missing About OZ

Me again.

I wanted to write this in a separate post from the whole car shopping thing. As I've been slowly readjusting to my regular life (or as regular as it is right now, anyway), I've been musing over the things which I'm missing from OZ... as well as the things I'm NOT missing. Oh, and what things I'm glad to have back in my life. Etc. etc. So in no particular order...

Things I'm Missing From OZ...

• Parrots. Even the noisy ones. Which is pretty much all of them.
• Boost Juice. It's just not the same here.
• Ginger beer. Can't find it in the grocery stores!
• Tim Tams. Of course.
• The incredible blue of the Aussie sky.
• The red, red, RED sand.
• Lizards.
• Australian commercials.
• Sushi rolls.
• The crazy architecture, both new and old, that is in Melbourne.
• The awesome scenery that is everywhere!
  
• All of my friends, new and old! :-(
  

Things I'm NOT Missing From OZ...

• The price of food. I went to Tim Hortons and bought a tea and a donut and paid $2.13. That would NEVER happen in OZ!
• The winter weather in Melbourne. My parents house is insulated. What a concept!
• The flies. Although the mozzies here are pretty bad, since the spring was so late.
• Fried eggs on hamburgers. 'Nuff said.
• Metlink and V-Line. Oh, yeah.
  
• Car turn signals on the right steering wheel stem. (I've only managed to turn the windshield wipers on in my Mom's car three times since I've returned. :-) Hee hee!)
  

Things I'm Enjoying About Being Home...

• Friends and family I haven't seen in a long time!
• Tim Horton's. It's frankly embarrassing how many times I've been to Timmy's since I got back.
• Central heating. Yes, it's still on here - the weather's been cold!
• Plant leaves in more than one shape.
• The cottage, the lake, and the loons.
• Getting ready for summer camp!
• Buying my new car!
• Telling many, many, many, many, many stories that begin with "In Australia..."
  

Things I'm NOT Enjoying About Being Home...

• The bed in my parents' house is way too hard. But this has been a problem for years. Really, I need a new back.
• The disastrous mess that is my room here, as I unpack/repack for summer. Gah.
• Not having my own desk.
• The idea that I will actually have to go back to *work* in the fall!
• Gas prices... which aren't as bad as in OZ, but are still much worse than when I left.

I know I've left stuff off these lists, so feel free to comment if you want!

Car Shopping

So... I've spent the last two days car shopping, as I begin the long and complicated process of putting my life back together to some semblance of normal. After much hemming and hawing, I've decided to lease a Honda Fit. Now that I've made a decision, I'm so excited! Dad and I are heading to the dealership first thing in the morning to settle the paperwork and all that stuff. Hooray!

And yes, I did end up getting a standard car. My friend Jane (who I haven't seen in the past three years, for all that her parents literally live two doors down the street from mine - our paths just haven't crossed!) came with me today to do a second test drive in a standard model. Yesterday I drove an automatic and didn't like it at all. But Jane drives standard, so she came with me and helped me drive the car to a quiet neighborhood, where I could experiment with the gear shifting. The car handles so much better as a manual gear shift.

So yeah. That's one big decision out of the way. And as soon as I know when I can take delivery of the car, I'll know when I'm heading to Toronto to begin househunting.

Home at last - at least for now!

I'm sitting in the den in my parents house in Ottawa, pretty much in exactly the same spot that I was in way back in September when I wrote the first entry for this blog. It feels kinda strange to be home after so long! Well, sort of home. I mean, I'm still officially "homeless" for now... I won't have my own place in Toronto for at least another month, if not more, and even then I won't really be living in Toronto until September because of summer camp. But yeah, for now, I'm home. Strange, but still good!

My travels across the country went well. On my very last day on Gabriola Island, Dave, Aylan and I went out to Drumbeg, a park at the far end of the island, and enjoyed a picnic lunch. Aylan is definitely related to me. She spent most of her time either picking flowers and grasses to give to me, or turning over rocks and exclaiming "eeew!" at the crabs and other critters underneath. We went on a quest to find an anemone a(I'm pretty sure she has no idea what an anemone is) but didn't find any in the rock pools. But all too soon the afternoon came to an end and we had to head back to the house so I could grab my stuff and Dave could take me to the ferry.

I'm pretty sure Aylan didn't quite understand that I wasn't living with them now. She wasn't too happy that I was leaving, but to give her credit, she's not quite three yet and she was very tired. Apparently she's been asking for me over the past few days, which I take it means I fulfilled my job as an auntie well. :-)

Dave drove me back to Nanaimo and dropped me off at the Duke Point ferry terminal and said goodbye. Once I made it on board, my job was to find Bill Hawke, my dad's friend who earlier in the week had driven me from the Vancouver Airport to the Tsawassen ferry terminal on the mainlaind side. He'd spent the week also on Vancouver Island with his wife Gail and a bunch of family friends, and we'd coordinated our return trips to the mainland to coincide so that I could hitch a ride back with him. Well we must've missed each other a number of times as we wandered around on the ferry (these boats are HUGE and can hold hundreds of people!), so I eventually gave up on looking and bought myself dinner from the onboard cafeteria instead. Of course that's when Gail finally did find me! Figures.

Bill and Gail and their friends had driven onto the ferry with their big camper van, but I had been a walk on passenger. This meant I also had to walk off on the far side and collect my checked baggage before I could rejoin the crew in the camper for the next part of the ride. Once we were all together, we headed for Bill and Gail's condo in South Vancouver. I hadn't realized that all of Bill and Gail's friends were also staying with them at the condo, so it was pretty full! There were five other guests in the camper van besides me, so we were jokingly calling it "Bill's bus". Ha ha!

It took a bit of coordinating once we got to the condo to get everyone's gear inside and set up in the various spare rooms. Since I was a last minute addition, and I was only staying overnight, I slept on the couch. (And a very comfy couch it was, too!). Bill was kind enough to get up with me at 4:45 in the morning (yuck) to take me to the airport. I actually bought a ticket for this leg of the journey - I wanted to make sure that my friends who were kind enough to pick me up in Toronto didn't miss any more of their long weekend than absolutely necessary.

Jen was right. That last flight from Vancouver to Toronto was waaaaay longer than the flight from Sydney to Vancouver! I guess it was because I was really finally at the end of the journey. It seemed to me that the last couple of hours took simply forever. But of course eventually I was back on the ground and collecting my stuff from the baggage carousel (which also seemed to take forever) and searching for my friends. Cat met me just outside the security zone and greeted me with a big hug! Then she called for Andy, our chauffeur for the weekend, who was waiting near the airport, and she picked us up. By 3pm on Saturday we were on our way to the cottage at last!

We got a wee bit too involved with yakking in the car and completely missed the exit off the 401 for Bowmanville, where I usually turn north to head towards the cottage. Ah well! We turned north at Norwood instead and took the back route. We got there in time for dinner with my folks, which was of course great. And it's funny - although it was cooler at the cottage than it has been in Melbourne recently, I swear I didn't feel the cold in the way I had when I was Down Under! Maybe my body was just happy to be home. :-)

Cat, Andy and I spent the rest of the weekend at the cottage, bumming around, eating various unhealthy items like swedish berries and skittles, burning things in the bonfire pit, and helping Dad put in the docks. This is the first year that we've had the new dock system, so it was a bit of an experimental procedure to get them in the water without getting wet. The individual dock segments are made of aluminum so they aren't all that heavy, but it was still a challenge to remain dry. We ended up floating the deep-end sections on the end of our paddle boat, with Cat steering the boat, while Dad and Uncle Ron and I attached stuff near the shore. In the end Cat did get a little wet but we got the silly thing in place!

My grandma owns the cottage next door to ours, and she and her sister (my great-aunt Marcelle) and my Uncle Ron and Aunt Kenna and my parents and my friends and I all got together for a great big gigantic feast on Sunday night, which was great. Well, except for the weather... it was possibly a high of 5C and raining and windy! So much for enjoying Victoria Day fireworks. We'll just have to save the pyrotechnics for Canada Day, I guess.

Today I said goodbye to Andy and Cat as they headed back to Toronto, and I drove with my parents to Ottawa. There's a new Tim Horton's open in Havelock now, and the lineup was out the door! (I have been to Timmy's four times in the past four days... well if that isn't a sign that I'm definitely home, I don't know what is!) We got home about 6pm and after unloading the car went straight out to dinner. I was originally supposed to go out to dinner with my best friend Vicky, but due to an unfortunate game of phone tag we missed each other until I was already out with my folks! Vicky and I did manage to meet up for desert, though. I've missed her SO MUCH these past eight months - it was GREAT to see her again.

So, all my faithful blog readers, we are nearing the end of my writings. I do have one more entry I want to make - but I'll do it tomorrow. Once again it appears to be way past my bedtime, and I'm pooped!

Last full day on Gabriola

Yep, tomorrow I pack my bags - again - and head eastwards once more. I'll be catching the evening ferry along with Bill Hawke and his assorted family members, and staying overnight with him, before flying to Toronto on Saturday. So I tried my best to make the most of today.

The weather was much better today than it has been for the last two, so we spent as much of the day outside as possible. Carly, Aylan and I went to the gardening centre and bought some plants and pots. We went back to the house and picked up Rowyn, fresh from her afternoon nap, and headed to the local coffee shop/gift shop for a browse. When we returned to the house a second time, Aylan helped her mom to do some planting, and of course in the process got filthy dirty. I was helping Aylan to refill her watering can at the tap. At one point she moved the can at the wrong moment and I sprayed her with water. (The horror!) She was NOT happy about being in wet clothes. But since it was nice and warm, Carly said it was ok for her to take off her pants and socks and walk around in her shirt only. Well, that lasted all of about 5 seconds before she'd shed all the rest of her clothes too and was happily splashing around in the muddy puddle she was making with her watering can. Gotta love almost-three-year-old logic: it's not OK to have wet jeans, but it is apparently OK to have wet muddy skin from chin to feet. And yes, I got some cute pics. Which I'll share at the cottage on the weekend. :-)

Carly's off at a "Moms' Night Out" dinner and Dave's just putting the kids to bed. Aylan once again pretty much fell asleep at the table tonight, but Rowyn isn't apparently all that interested in sleeping. Hopefully she'll go down soon. Dave's got a Wii and we're gonna play some video games tonight, once we get some 'adult' time. I can't believe it's already time for me to head onwards - this week has gone so fast!

Not sure when I will next get a chance to blog... I won't have email tomorrow or all weekend long, since I'll be at the cottage. Hopefully I'll put in one or two more entries next week once I get back to Ottawa before closing down this blog for good. I'm sad that this is coming to an end!

Snotty Noses and other Fun

So today I've played hide and seek, been jumped on and poked and tickled, put together about 15 jigsaw puzzles, read a ton of books, soothed a bonked head, pushed kids on the swing, etc. etc. etc. I don't know who's more worn out - Aylan and Rowyn or me! The truth is I'm playing more with Aylan than with Rowyn... the little one was a big grumpy bear today (she's not feeling well) and was far more happy being with mom or dad than with me. No worries. Both girls are now in bed... Aylan practically fell asleep in her dinner.

Dave's been working on my computer all day and it is much happier. Most importantly, the fan isn't so loud anymore, which is GREAT. Thanks Dave! (I think it's funny that my computer gets its yearly servicing every time I come across the country to visit my bro.)

And I am apparently still jet-lagged... I couldn't fall asleep last night for the life of me, and then I was up wide awake at 5am this morning. I must admit I caved and had a nap yesterday afternoon, which was likely part of the problem. No nap for me today. Hopefully I can get a 'normal' night's sleep tonight!

I Am The Chosen One

Yep. Life is good.

Aylan has apparently decided that I am The Chosen One, which means she wants me to help her with everything. I have to sit beside her at meals. I helped her brush her teeth and visit the potty. We did puzzles together and read books together and watched Sesame Street together this afternoon. She wanted me to be with her in the bath and put her to bed too. Pretty cool!

Rowyn is also a total cutie. She is a pretty laid back baby, although she was a little cranky today and the thought is that more teeth are on their way in. The important thing is I can actually hold her! When Aylan was little she didn't want anyone but Carly (mom) to hold her. Today Dave had to take Aylan to and from preschool, which left me home alone with Rowyn for two 20-minute periods. We played and giggled and cooed and laughed and it was great.

I gotta remember to take out the camera tomorrow or I'm going to get shot by my mom on the weekend! :-)

Back in the Great White North

Hooray! I finally made it back to Canada!

I must admit I went to the Sydney airport yesterday feeling more than a little nervous/sick to my stomach. I was pretty much convinced that I wasn't going to get on the plane. There were some 30-odd folks on the standby list with me, and pretty much all of them were ahead of me in the seniority rankings. As I watched the crowd of standby hopefuls grow and grow outside the ticketing counter, I was already mentally preparing myself to go and buy tickets through Honolulu with Jet Star and West Jet. Fortunately I never had to!

The plane was scheduled to leave at 10:10am, and they didn't start handing out the standby boarding passes until 9:30. As more and more folks were called to get their passes and head for the plane, I was completely convinced I wasn't getting on. But this time at least my luck was with me. I got the very last boarding pass for the plane! I had stopped looking at my watch by this point because I knew it was so close to the time the plane was taking off. When they called my name for the boarding pass I swear I felt like I won the lottery! I thanked the counter staff profusely, dumped them with my checked bags, and hoofed it to security. Once through the screening I practically ran all the way to the plane, through the maze of construction that is Sydney airport. I was one of the last people to board the plane. PHEW!

The flight certainly had its challenges. There was something wrong with the in-flight entertainment system, so unfortunately my interactive touch screen (and those of about 90% of the other passengers) didn't work. So I spent the 14 hour flight with a blank screen and no music either. When it got dark I discovered that my reading light also didn't work. Gah. Thank goodness I had my flashlight! Also, the guy in the seat in front of me was more than a little rude. I was in the very last row of seats in the plane, and the storage bins over my seat were full of airplane equipment, so I went to put my bags in the bin in front. The guy in that row was downright rude to me, basically telling me to go find somewhere else to put my stuff because he didn't want my bags over his head. BLAH. They'd already made the announcements for everyone to take their seats and fasten their belts at this point. Fortunate one of the flight attendants came to my rescue and took my wheely suitcase to be cabin checked. In the end it wound up in a bin in Business class... so at least my luggage made it back to Canada in style!

When we arrived in Vancouver I had no problems going through customs (and I didn't even have to explain about the funky hat I bought - yay!), and Bill Hawke picked me up to drive me to the ferry. We stopped at (you guessed it!) Tim Hortons for a much needed caffeine break before arriving at the ferry terminal. I did a quick switcheroo with some of my luggage items so I only had to bring my big red pack with me. Bill's gonna store the rest of my luggage this week and I'll get it back just before I fly to Toronto on Saturday.

The ferry ride was actually harder in many ways than the plane ride. By the time I got on the ferry my body felt like it was about 4am, and I got no sleep on the plane. I was more than a little groggy by the time my brother Dave and my niece Aylan picked me up on the Nanaimo side. But after a spot of lunch and a good big mug of tea, all was well.

Aylan has grown so much since I last saw her! She's now almost 3 years old and very independant. She's talking up a storm, although I don't always understand what she's trying to say. Dave is very good at translating "toddler" for me. Aylan loves to have stories read to hear and I swear I read about 30 picture books to her this afternoon, including the four that I bought her as a present. Her younger sister, Rowyn, is a cutie patootie... and not at all fussy about who holds her, unlike how Aylan was at her age (8 months). Dave and I pushed Aylan and Rowyn in the swings in the backyard for over an hour and neither girl tired of the fun. I think I was more worn out than they were!

The girls are in bed now and Carly's had to go off on a short business call, so I've caught a few free minutes to update my blog. All is well here and it feels so good to be back in Canada. Although it'll be interesting to see how my body decides to deal with the jet lag in the next few days...

I'll keep this blog going for the next week, so that my Aussie friends can hear about my adventures with my nieces here in BC, and then I'll likely sign off for good. The thing is, I've gotten rather used to blogging now. Who knows -maybe I'll start another blog once this one is done! But is my so-called normal life really exciting enough to post online for all the world to see?

Happy Mother's Day!

So I had originally hoped to celebrate Mother's Day in BC with my sister-in-law, Carly, my brother Dave, and their kids. We were going to do a video chat with my mom back in Ottawa, I'd play with my nieces, and all would be grand. Of course I'm still in OZ so that plan didn't quite work out. :-)

Instead, I called both my mom and my grandma today and wished them a happy Aussie Mothers Day, since at the time of my calls it was still Saturday back home. I did like surprising them with the calls... I bought an international phone card and thought that I had about 100 minutes of talk time, but when I punched in the codes, it turned out I had over 1000 minutes. Cool! Too bad I won't be in OZ long enough to take full advantage of this card. (I hope.)

Bill and Ruth and I went to Ruth's parents' house for lunch today. Ruth's mom Nancy made a fabulous baked meal (we would call it a roast) and we all ate a little too much. Ruth and I also went out and did a little shopping today, and I walked out of the mall with a whole new (and spiffy, if I do say so myself!) teacher outfit. Cool!

I feel like I'm back to the same old routine again. I spent the afternoon packing my bags. Again. Checking my email. Again. Double checking my flight information and backup plans. Again. :-) Tomorrow I'm heading to the airport - again - so I can try to catch the Air Canada flight to Vancouver - again. Please wish me luck. I really do kinda want to be home now. If I don't make tomorrow's standby flight I'll be forking out the big bucks to buy some tickets home.

So although I've already said this, here's hoping that the next time I write in this blog, I'm doing so from the Great White North!

GESS Day

Today I joined Carroll and a whole bunch of girls and Guiders from all over Sutherland Shire and down the southern coast for a day of science and engineering activities at Wollongong University, called Guides in Engineering and Science Saturday (GESS). It was funny - I'd met (or re-met, for the girls from Ruth and Carroll's unit) a number of these girls at the Bindaree Regatta last weekend and told them that I was flying home to Canada. So they were pretty surprised to see me again! I got to explain the joys of standby travel over and over and over. :-)

My job for the day was basically to ride herd, and help ensure that the girls were where they were supposed to be. I shadowed one of the groups as they circulated through the activities, and snapped some great pictures. Basically Guiding (i.e. Carroll) was responsible for doing all the admin for the day, and the university's profs and grad students put together the activities.

The girls got to try out four different activities. First my group played around with electricity and magnetism. The Van Der Graaf generator was a big hit - there's no Science Centre here for the girls to go to, so I don't think they'd ever seen one before. I got some great pictures of kids with their hair standing on end! Then we trooped over to another building and made solar-powered fans, which the girls loved. In the afternoon, we attended a session on wind turbines (which wasn't the greatest, to put it mildly, but the girls survived), and then we ended the afternoon with the Great Egg Drop. As a science teacher I learned a few new tricks to take back to my class. So all in all a pretty good day!

Ruth and I ended up back at Carroll's for tea after the girls had all gone home, and while the two of them were searching for something on the computer (Ruth's got a big assignment for her PhD courses due this week), I amused myself by watching the antics of the kookaburras who seem to like Carroll's backyard. They really are big birds! They eat snakes and worms and other slimy things, and this great big kookaburra spent a lot of time surveying the backyard from a perch on the clothesline - much to the dismay of the other backyard birds, who didn't seem to want it there.

When Ruth and I got home, Bill had already cooked us dinner, which was great! I ate too much. Way too much. Then we had dessert. I ate too much dessert. Groan. I've spent most of the evening with a very full and somewhat unhappy belly. Ah well. Life's rough. :-)

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and I was hoping to at least be in the same COUNTRY as my Mom, so that when I called her, the time difference wouldn't be so crazy. Of course that's not the case, so Mom's gonna have to put up with me calling her whenever I can. I am looking forward to my second attempt at flying home on Monday...

Taronga Zoo

I didn't do much yesterday. I slept in, getting up just in time to wave goodbye to Ruth as she headed off to work. I spent most of the day at the computer, checking and double checking my flight options in case I don't make the standby flight on Monday. I also actually did a bit of work on my website - although the changes won't be visible until I can reconnect my own computer to the internet. The wireless network at Ruth's house isn't working and so I've had to do all my email etc. on her Mac, which is driving me a little crazy. Mostly 'cause the mouse only has one button. :-) (Don't worry Ruth, I love your computer, it's just so different from mine!)

Today was a different story though. I figured that since I've got this time to kill here in Sydney I might as well make the most of it, so I headed back downtown today and went to Taronga Zoo. The Zoo is built on a cliff on the north side of Sydney Harbour, so to reach it I had to take a boat cruise across the water and then a bus up to the top. Normally there's a cable car to ride to the top of the zoo, but it wasn't working today. The zoo was pretty cool... because it's up on the cliffside, the views over the harbour are great. I followed the meandering paths through the zoo, spending way more time than was strictly necessary at the reptiles and bird enclosures.

Taronga Zoo is pretty old, and one of the things I thought was neat was that throughout the zoo were plaques and photos showing what the place looked like up to 100 years ago. Of course the animal enclosures have undergone significant renovations since then, and the displays are now all quite modern and well done. They've just in the last year or so opened a new exhibit on the Southern Oceans, which had sea lions, seals, and of course little penguins on display. The seal exhibit was so new that the animals were still learning their parts in the seal show! It was really cute - the trainers would give the seals their cues, and sometimes they did the required behaviour, and sometimes they didn't. But it was still fun and interesting to watch the training in progress for a change.

When I headed back out to the suburbs, I got off at the train station nearest Ruth's school and met her there. The teachers at her school have a fun Friday after-school tradition - they have a bit of a happy hour in their staffroom! So I found Ruth in the staff room enjoying a soda, chatting with her colleagues. I joined them - lemon lime and bitters is slowly growing on me - and then we headed off to Ruth's daughter's house for afternoon tea. So in the end we didn't get home until well after 7pm and decided that we were far too knackered to actually cook dinner. Instead Ruth ordered some Chinese take-out. I tried to pay for it, I truly did - even going so far as to chase Bill out the door with a $50 in my hand, and tucking it into his shirt pocket when he got in the car, but no luck. When he returned from picking up our dinner, Bill gave me back my change - $50. (Sigh. How am I ever going to thank these two for taking care of me?)

Thanks for your suggestions and support

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's sent me emails/facebook messages/blog comments in the last 24 hours - your support means a lot to me! I've spent the last 24 hours mulling over my options for getting home. I must admit I didn't sleep well last night... maybe I'm more stressed about this than I thought I was.

In any case, this morning I headed to downtown Sydney to check out the travel deals available from the YHA. The guy there was pretty helpful and found me a couple of different possible routes back to Ottawa, all options for under $2000. That's definitely better than what I'd found yesterday through Travelocity! The I poked my head into Flight Centre and they found me an even better deal. Also, Jen suggested that I put myself on a Jet Star flight to Honolulu and then look at whatever cheap flights I can find out of there. Hmmm... there are lots of possibilities!

I guess the long and the short of it is that I really don't want to spend an extra $1500-odd if I can manage it. So currently my plan is to try for the standby flight on Monday, and if I don't get on, I'll likely buy a real ticket all the way home. In the meantime, I still have some major research to do, to ensure I don't get dinged for the luggage I have, whatever way I decide to head home. If I fly Air Canada I'm fine - but I don't know what the baggage restrictions are for the other possible airlines I might fly.

Craziness!

So, after I'd dealt with all that stuff, I decided some more touring was in order. I was already all the way downtown, so I hopped back on the train and headed for Circular Quay, which I swear has the BEST view of any train station I've ever been through. I mean, really... as the train enters the station, it emerges from a tunnel and the passengers are treated to a fantastic view of Sydney Harbour, with the Bridge on one side and the Opera House on the other. Not bad at all! Unfortunately, when I went to pass my ticket through the gate to exit the station, the damned machine ate my ticket! Turns out I'd purchased the wrong ticket in the morning... I thought I'd bought a city hopper, which would have allowed me to bop all over downtown before heading back out to the suburbs. Not so much. I had to fork out an extra $4.40 to get a ticket back home at the end of the day. Gah.

I spent the rest of the day exploring The Rocks, the oldest part of Sydney that's just under the southern side of the Harbour Bridge. There's all sorts of fun little shops and cafes there, and the buildings are really old and beautiful. I also spent a couple of hours at the Museum of Contemporary Art, which was excellent. I arrived just in time to participate in a free guided tour, so I joined in, hoping to gain some better understanding of art. (I swear I really don't *get* art... but I do like looking at it.) There were some pretty cool art installations. They had an exhibition of this one artist's work - she likes to fuse aspects of the natural world with the manufactured world, which results in all sorts of odd sculptures, photos and prints. Like bird nests made of shredded dollar bills. Or strange half-creatures made of beads and PVC piping.

I was pretty pooped by the time I'd caught the train back out to Ruth's school, where she'd agreed to wait for me so I could catch a ride back to her house. Ruth wasn't feeling all that well and had a pretty hideous headache by the time we made it home, so I made dinner. I think I made enough pasta to feed me, Ruth and Bill for a week. :-)

"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" is on tonight, and since this is the first Wednesday in a while that I've been able to actually *watch* TV, I'm going to sign off for now and go enjoy. I can't wait for the new Indiana Jones movie to come out!

More later...

Looking for some advice!

Well as I know you know by now, I didn't make it on the plane this morning and I am still here in Sydney. BLAH. Looks like getting home is going to be a good deal more complicated than I'd originally hoped.

I was told by Air Canada reservations that there is a HUGE lineup of people trying to fly out of here on standby, and because my priority code is the lowest on the list, this means that I will keep going to the bottom of the pile. There were so many people booked to try for standby flights over the next few days that I was advised to not even try for another standby flight until Monday (May 12). So I am currently booked on Monday's flight to Vancouver.

Here's the trick though. I need to be out of the country by May 15th at the latest because that's when my health insurance runs out. I can call and extend it, but even so, I *HAVE* to be home absolutely no later than May 20th, since I will need a few days to deal with the jet lag and get myself ready for the whitewater canoeing course I'm on May 23-25.

My concern is that if I don't make the standby flight on Monday and the standby situation doesn't get any better, I might have to bite the bullet and buy a ticket home.

I've spent the past several hours digging through the travel websites, trying to find good deals. I can fly from here to Vancouver for about $1500 on either the 9th or the 11th. All other dates the price goes up to $1828. So if I don't book myself a real ticket right now, then Dave, I'm sorry but I can't come out your way.

I could theoretically try flying back to Ottawa from Vancouver via standby, if I make it out to see Dave and Carly and the kids. There are also some good deals with both WestJet and Air Canada where I could fly to Ottawa around the 20th for about $300.

I can fly from here to Ottawa for anywhere between $2031 and $2250 depending on the day.

So I need some advice. I don't know what to do next:

• Do I wait 'till Monday and try to be on that flight?
• If I don't get on that flight, do I keep trying and hope for the best? Or do I buy a ticket home, hoping the prices haven't gone up?
• Do I buy a ticket home now? If so, should I stop in BC or just come straight home?

I'd welcome your ideas and suggestions! Thanks everyone!

Still in Sydney

So yeah... I didn't get on the flight this morning. There were only a few seats available and a whole ton of people in front of me on the standby list. As I was standing there at the Air Canada check-in counter, waiting to find out what was going on, I was eavesdropping on two other girls about my age who were also trying to catch the flight. Sounded like they'd been stuck in Sydney for several days already, unable to fly out. When I finally got up to the counter to talk to the folks there, the news wasn't good. Looks like I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of flying outta here until at LEAST next Monday! Gah!

So after some teary phone calls to my parents and my brother to let them know I'm not quite on my way home yet, and a blubbery call to Bill to ask him to come and get me from the airport, here I am back at Bill and Ruth's house, trying to figure out what to do next.

I will keep you updated. Looks like the adventure isn't quite as over as I thought it was...

My last day in OZ

Yep, my path continues to come full circle. I spent my last day in OZ in Ruth's grade 3 classroom, doing an engineering design challenge with her kids. It was lots of fun! I did a simplified version of the tower challenge that I do every year with my grade 7's. In the morning I had the kids build triangles and squares out of straws and we investigated the properties of these shapes, and decided that triangles were stronger for building with. Then we all tromped over to the hall (the school's indoor assembly area) to build the towers. Some of the designs the kids came up with were pretty innovative! After lunch I pulled out a fan and we tried blowing the towers over to see what would happen. All in all it was great fun and I know the students had a good day.

Tonight I have a big job to do - repacking my bags... again! Seems to matter how I try, everything kinda explodes out of my bags whenever I have to actually LIVE out of them for more than a day. I'm blaming the current clothing explosion on yesterday's regatta - I had to dig all the way to the bottom of my big suitcase to find my bathing suit. So I'll be spending the next hour or so cursing all the crap I've accumulated these past eight months as I try to get everything to fit back in my bags.

It's so strange that I'm leaving tomorrow! I'm going to be a complete wreck in the morning when I have to say goodbye to Bill and Ruth. Then, hopefully my luck with standby flights will continue and I will be winging my way towards BC. I'll be spending the next week with my brother Dave and his family. I'm looking forward to FINALLY meeting my newest niece, Rowyn, who was born last September just before I flew away! So while the end of this OZ trip is sad in its own way, I have much happiness to look forward to, and for that I am thankful.

Hopefully the next time you hear from me I will be back in the Great White North again!

Saying Goodbye, and the Bindaree Regatta

Yep, I was right, 5:30 this morning came way too soon! I woke up sad, knowing that today I really did have to say goodbye to Jen and start my homeward trek. She's a sneaky girl. When I headed downstairs to use the bathroom and brush my teeth, I discovered that she'd written "Safe journey home" on the bathroom mirror in gel gems! Well, that got me all teary and I remained in the bathroom a little longer than was strictly necessary to do my business. When I went back upstairs I rewarded Jen with a punch in the arm. She and I truly have developed our own method of communication over the last eight months. :-)

The taxi came to pick us up at 6, and we were at the airport before 6:30 - mostly because our driver was a complete psycho speed demon! So after I'd gotten myself all checked in and we'd made it through security (here in OZ, non-travelers can go through the security screening at the domestic terminals and accompany you to the gate, which is great), we wandered through the terminal, looking for something to eat for breakfast. My stomach was not at all happy - I think because I was more than a little upset about having to leave. In the end Jen convinced me to take some slices of banana bread with me on the airplane, to eat a little later on.

I think that was about the point that I burst into tears and completely bawled my eyes out on Jen's shoulder. She took it well, all things considered. :-) I guess it just finally hit me that I really am heading home, and that this awesome adventure is over, and I have to go back to my so-called normal life. Sigh.

I finally managed to pull myself together and we made it to the gate. Then it was my turn to surprise Jen. Earlier this week I'd burned CD's with all our pictures from the year, and I also made a music CD of all the songs which have become our unofficial soundtrack for the year. I gave these to Jen, along with - of all things - a rubber chicken. She and I have been joking for a while now that of all the things we didn't bring with us from Canada, we really regret not bringing our rubber chickens! Ha ha! Yet more proof that the two of us are completely psychotic. So enjoy the chicken, Jen - and like my card said, use it well.

Then all too soon it was time to get on the plane and fly away. The flight to Sydney was fine, and I even splurged and bought myself a hot chocolate from the cart. (gasp) Bill picked me up at the airport and brought me back home to dump my stuff and get changed, and then he whisked me off to Bindaree, the Sutherland Shire Guides' water activities centre, where I met up with Ruth and her Guides and a whole ton of other Guide units from around the region, for the Bindaree Blitz Regatta! Well, if I was looking for something to distract me from the fact that I'd just left one of my best friends back in Melbourne and that I'm heading homewards, this was it!

The Bindaree Regatta is basically a smaller version of the HUGE Boree Regatta, which happens each October. Unfortunately Jen and I had missed attending that one, due to our busy schedules. So I was glad I got to participate in this smaller event, at least! There were about 150 girls at today's event, aged anywhere from 6 to 17 years of age. In the morning the younger girls (Gumnuts and Brownies, essentially) did the water events and the older girls did land events, and in the afternoon they switched around. I ended up working with the water activities leaders, as they were a little short-handed.

I arrived about 45 minutes late (due to my flight and getting changed and having to dig through all my stuff to find my bathing suit and all), so I wasn't all that sure what exactly was going on. But they needed more Guiders to help organize the girls and canoes and kayaks etc. at the start of each race, so I ended up helping there. The young girls' races basically had the girls paddling straight out from the beach, around a buoy, and back to the beach. This was complicated a bit by the strong current on the river (like all the rivers around Sydney, the one we were on is tidal and the tide was heading out in the morning), and the fact that many of the girls hadn't ever been in a boat before. There were two leaders out in kayaks on the river to help the girls and coach them along, and two more leaders in a powered zodiac (it's called a rubber ducky here, ha ha!) in case a rescue was needed. It was all great fun. I also got to participate in one of the races, where the youngest girls were racing each other in the canoes. Each boat had a girl in the front and a leader in the back. Ruth was really hoping I'd win that race so her unit could gain some points in the competition, but unfortunately I got wedged between two other boats and ended up in third place. Ah well!

Once the morning races were over I had just enough time to grab myself a sausage for lunch and wolf it down, and then head back over to the beach for the afternoon's older-girl races. I was asked if I would be willing to take over as one of the safety boats on the river, so of course I said yes! So I spent the afternoon paddling around in a kayak, helping the few boats which were having problems paddling, cheering everyone on, and generally having a blast. One of the afternoon races I thought was particularly cool. They sat one girl in the middle of each canoe, and then the bow and stern paddlers in the boat were blindfolded. The paddlers had to rely completely on their sighted passenger to give them directions to paddle around the course. It was so cool! What a great cooperative activity! I want to try this at Woolsey this summer.

Got back to Ruth's this evening and enjoyed a nice hot shower to get rid of the salt and the river smell. Carroll came over and joined us for dinner, and now the two of them are relaxing in the living room, eating chocolate and watching TV. It's about time I went and joined them. More tomorrow!

My last two days in Melbourne

Yesterday didn't quite work out as we had originally planned. :-)

Jen called me about 8am to tell me that she'd managed to leave the bank book for paying rent on her desk at home - so I arranged to meet her at her school at 4pm so she could get to the bank before it closed and pay rent.

Then I went to make the reservation with the restaurant we're going to to celebrate my leaving tonight - and had no credit left on my phone. The restaurant's website will only take reservations 48hrs in advance. So suddenly I had to head down to the Docklands and talk to them in person.

Jen had also asked me to try and pick up a present for one of her co-workers, who is having a housewarming party this weekend. Due to the stupidly slow trams, by the time I'd made it out to the Docklands, there was no time left for me to go shopping for Jen.

I met up with Vicky Marrack at the National Gallery of Victoria for lunch and a wander through the gallery, which was very nice. We saw a few really cool artworks. My favourite was the fibre-optic glowing ladder that stretched from floor to ceiling in this darkened room. As you approached the ladder, you realized that there were mirrors set in the floor and ceiling - so if you looked down or up, the ladder appeared to go on forever. Very cool.

I made it out to Jen's school on time, and we got the rent paid, enjoyed a Boost juice (I'm really gonna miss those), and found a present for her co-worker. However the rest of our plans for the evening were foiled. We wanted to go and see the Spiderwick Chronicles. However it's no longer playing in the evenings here - go figure. So instead we ended up at our favourite Chinese massage parlour, where we enjoyed neck and back massages. Then we picked up some popcorn, pizza, and two movies from Blockbuster and went home to veg out on the couches.

Let me put this bluntly. We purchased cheap second hand movies from Blockbuster because it was so much easier than trying to rent anything. (Long story). One of the movies we bought was "Balls of Fury". Jen thought it might be a good pick because she really enjoyed "Dodgeball". I've not seen Dodgeball, but I can tell you that Balls of Fury was TERRIBLE. Our stream of bad movies continues.

Jen redeemed herself, though, by also purchasing "10 Things I Hate About You", which I also hadn't seen. It was pretty funny, and Jen and Jen and I enjoyed it from the comfort of our big bedroom, all snuggled up under our doonas.

Today we all slept in (well, I was up at 7:30 as usual, but it still somehow feels like sleeping in when you do it on a weekend!). Jen and I spent the morning chatting with folks back home via the webcams, and before we knew it the entire morning had been frittered away. We had originally planned to go and check out Scienceworks, Melbourne's science centre, but by the time we got ourselves moving we didn't have enough time to get out there and back again (it's not near downtown at all) before we needed to meet up with everyone for dinner. Instead, the two Jens and I meandered once more through the Victoria Market, searching for souvenirs.

The trams were crazy busy so we ended up walking from the market all the way down Swanston St. to Flinders, poking our heads into all the cheesy tourist stores along the way. We were quasi-looking for a "good" (and I use that term lightly) Australiana t-shirt for me, but I couldn't find one I wanted. Jen has threatened to buy me one of her choosing and mail it to me in Canada, so I have no choice but to wear it. Ha ha! I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

We headed out towards the Docklands to meet up with the rest of the Canadian teachers living in my house, my housemates Renzo and Jasmine, my former housemate Russell, and Vicky and Alyesha, to enjoy a goodbye dinner. We ate at the Yum Cha Dragon, a very pretty-looking Chinese restaurant. The food was ok but the service was terrible; I don't know that I'd choose to eat there again. (Not that I'm likely to have the opportunity!) However I just really enjoyed being able to sit and chat with all my friends here, old and new, and have a chance to say goodbye.

After dinner, most of us (save for Jasmine and Russell, who had prior engagements elsewhere) walked over to the Telstra Dome and watched a footy game. We watched the St. Kilda Saints play the Richmond Tigers. We were cheering for the Saints - with no better basis than that their team colours are very Canadian - white, red and black. I kept joking that I might as well be cheering for the Ottawa Senators! Jen had bought me a "Saints" scarf yesterday, and pretty much everyone else in our group also had one, so we fit right in with the Saints-cheering part of the crowd. Richmond was definitely the favored team in the match, but in the end the Saints won in a nail-biting couple of minutes. It was a great game.

Jen and I have decided that watching Australian footy is somewhat akin to watching a large group of grown men play hot potato. Alyesha tried her best to explain some of the rules to us, and we got the gist of the game, but really, it kinda looks like anything goes. The ball can be thrown, kicked, or dribbled in any direction. Players can be tackled, grabbed, and thrown to the ground. Points can be scored by kicking or running the ball between the appropriate goal posts. Single points can also be scored by missing the main goal posts but passing the ball in between the posts on either side of the main ones. Telstra Dome is about the same size as Rogers Centre, and holds about 50,000 people. There were over 40,000 people at this game, and this was one of several games of footy being played throughout the city over this weekend. The Aussies truly are crazy about their sports, but it made for a great, fun evening.

So here I am, back at Balmer Street for one last evening before flying to Sydney early tomorrow morning. My bags are packed, the taxi's booked, and everything's ready for me to go. Sigh. I'm so looking forward to going home. I so don't want to leave. I'm going to miss Jen terribly, even though I know I'm going to see her again in less than four months. It's been quite the ride, and I'm so glad I came.

OK, I'd better go to bed. 5:30's gonna come awfully soon...

My Bags are Packed... Again

This feels a little strange... I'm all packed and ready to head for home, and there are still four days left before I fly away from Australia for good. We had to do a little house rearrangement today - Jen Challenger moved out of her room and in to my half of the room I've been sharing with Jen since October. Of course this meant that I had to give up my space, and pack my bags. So now we officially have a "Jen squared" room. Ha ha! My stuff is all piled on "my" Jen's side of the room and things are now a little squishy, so I'm sitting out in the common room with my laptop to write this. I no longer have my own desk, either. :-) But that's OK, 'cause I'll be heading for home soon, and I'm so ready to go!

Last night I went to my last Aussie trampolining class. My goal for the evening was to land a full airplane, a relatively simple trick that's eluded me for almost two years. I just can't quite twist the right way to be able to nail it. I almost got there last night though - I landed one or two but not consistently. I am hoping that when I get back to my club in Canada, with trampolines that are level with the ground, I'll be a little less scared of the height I'm bouncing and be able to land the stupid trick. Mark decreed that we should celebrate my leaving, so Jen bought a lamington cake on her way to meet up with me at the trampolining club. She, Mark, Pete, Jake and I all shared the cake at the end of the evening. MMM. Cake.

This morning I woke up very, very sore from last night's bouncing. I didn't really want to face the prospect of rolling over in bed, and put that moment off for as long as I humanly could. The hot shower that Jen made me take helped, though. My back really doesn't like all the twisting I do when I'm trampolining.

What with me being so stiff and all, it took me longer than I thought it would to finish my packing, and I didn't get to leave the house until almost 2pm. After all the nit-pickyness of packing (remembering I've only got one of my big bags with me here right now, the other's already up in Sydney, so getting all my remaining stuff to fit in my red pack was a bit of a challenge), I really needed some fresh air. I headed downtown and back to the Melbourne Museum. I first visited it back in February with Jen's mom, and we ran out of time to go through all the galleries. Today I explored the deep sea exhibit, went back for a closer look at the bug exhibit (go figure), and wandered through a display on how the mind works. I went back to the Virtual Room and watched a few more of their cool 3D movies, although they were having problems with the lighting and the overhead lights kept flickering on, which was annoying.

After I'd finished exploring in the museum, I wandered over to Lygon Street to meet up with Jen and Tarra for dinner. I'm having my big goodbye bash on Saturday but unfortunately Tarra can't come, so we celebrated tonight instead. We ate yummy pasta and bruschetta at one restaurant, then wandered across the street to enjoy Tim Tam cake. MMMMM. More cake. :-)

So yeah. I'm ready to come home, and I have a little bit of time to kill before my flights. Or I guess a better way to put it would be that I have a few more days in which to enjoy my time here to the max. And I'm planning on it!