Travelin Tales.....Vol. 1

G'Day folks! Well I have successfully made it to and from Melbourne in one piece. I had a great time down there and have so many stories to tell. I have so many stories that I couldn't possibly put them all into one blog entry. You would be sat at your computer reading for days, not to mention that I am dead tired and couldn't tell you everything tonight. The two pictures that I posted are a pretty good representation of what this trip was about. The city, and the beach! I spent hours walking and lounging on the beach. The hostel was within walking distance to St. Kilda beach so basically, with the exception of one day I think, I went to the beach at least once a day. I also did so many things in the city, and just had an overall great experience! I think the best way to share my trip with you at home is to break it down into a chronological series of stories, so keep in mind it might take a few days to read about my whole trip.

So to start with arriving at the airport to depart would be a good place to start don't you think? Well on Monday when I was departing, Peter was also going away on business to Wagga Wagga (yea I know what you thinking, but it is a real place), our flights were like 5 mins apart so we travelled to the airport together. We were leaving from different terminals, but it was just the matter of crossing a pedway and parking garage into my terminal. So after we dropped the car off for the park and fly we headed our seperate ways. As I walked into my terminal I could see a huge line of people, probably the length of the terminal, waiting to check in. I don't know what the hell was going on at the airport this particular day, but it was about to throw a huge wrench into my plans I thought. So I checked in with one of those kiosk dealies, and thought that was going to make it super easy to then just dump my bag and away I go.......or so I thought. After checking in I wasn't too sure where to go from there, so I asked one of the Quantas ladies standing near me. She told me that I had to get in the mile long line in order to check my bag. I looked at this woman with a combination of desperation and disbelief, and then told her that my flight was leaving at 8:30 and it was now 7:55. She then said "Oh well if the flight is leaving at 8:30 what time to you board?" I looked at my ticket and then realized that I was supposed to board at 8:10! So anyways long story short and a few breif waves of panic I was shuffled along to the already called flight line, where I quickly checked my bag and ran through security and to my gate in the nick of time. The flight was fine. It only took an hour, so before you knew it, we were there. I knew that when I arrived in Melbourne I had to call the hostel I was staying at to get a code for the shuttle bus driver, but I thought it wise to get me bag first. So I came off the plane and went directly to the baggage claim. I was standing amongst the people who also had just flown with me, watching the belt go around and waiting for them to start dumping luggage onto it, when they started making announcments on the loud speaker. The announcement went like this "Attention Quantas passengers arriving on flight 417 from Sydney (my flight), approximately 60 pieces of luggage failed to be loaded onto this flight. We are sorry for the inconvenience, and we hope that most of that luggage will be arriving on flight 419 arriving at 10:25am." I looked at my watch and it was 10:00, so I thought meh that's not so bad. Then I heard, "However if your luggage does not arrive on this flight we will recieve it within the next 24 hours" Ugh! I think we all know how the Moreeeny Curse works when it comes to travel situations. So I stood and waited at the carousel with the other confused passengers, and I tried to think of what my next course of action would be, because since I was so late checking my bag chances were mine was one of the 60 left behind. As I was thinking this they started to dump what luggage they did have onto the belt and it began to move along. The line of luggage started to come down to where I was standing, and I was floored when I saw that my bag was the second on the belt!!!!! I was so suprised, I almost let it go by me. I snatched my bag and got the hell out of dogdge! Maybe the Moreeny Curse is only in Canada, it would seem as tho this could be possible.

From this experience I boarded the shuttle to the hostel and away I went on my adventure! I am going to bed, but don't worry there will be good stories tomorrow too.