Excuses!

I have failed in my goal—actually, did I make it a week? I don’t even know. Ha!

At any rate, I do have the excuse of having no internet for several days, which is pretty legit given that it would be impossible to put up a blog post without the internet. This does not, however, excuse me from not writing them in the first place, since I have had access to a computer and electricity to charge the computer, and even if I hadn’t there’s a perfectly good notebook and pen right over there.

So. What’s been happening? My last few days went something like this:

On Friday I woke up at five in the morning to get ready and head out the door so that I could meet my lovely friends joining me in Australia. I was a bit nervous they would already be out when I got there because the earliest public transport got me to the airport an hour after they landed. Taking into account getting off the plane and going through customs and getting their luggage and taking their luggage through the scanners and dog-sniffers, I thought I’d be cutting it close, but not that close.

Turns out, my bus was just early enough that I was able to catch the train before the train I was supposed to catch and arrived 15 minutes early. There, I thought—I’ve definitely beaten them now.

I did a quick cursory look around the arrival area just to be sure, and went to stand in front of the customs exist with my camera in hand and practically bouncing for joy. And I waited. And waited. And waited. (There will be a video of this later.)

Finally, at 7:30 when I started to see people from LAX coming through, I peeled away from the exit and started another circuit of the airport. I hadn’t done it earlier because I thought, what if they come through while I’m wandering around and then I go and stand in front of the arrivals section again and they’re off sitting somewhere? I headed toward a coffee place first, thinking that’d be the first thing I’d be doing if I had just gotten off a 15 hour flight, and as I’m walking over I hear “EMILY!”

And sure enough, there they were, waiting there for over an hour while I stood stupidly at the gate. Well then. Many hugs and squeals ensued, and we headed over to the taxi rank to get a taxi back, and when we got to the house I tossed ‘em in amidst the mess of boxes and suitcases, because we were moving that day.

Not a very convenient time for awesome people to arrive, and I felt SO bad about not being able to hang out with them much those first few days. On Friday, I was packing up little stuff while other people were getting the big stuff out of the house, and then I had an interview for a nanny position in Toowong that took about two and a half hours with travelling included. And on Saturday I was supposed to be working but moving had been so inefficient (I won’t even get into frustrations there, it’ll just make me angry all over again) that we had to keep moving stuff on Saturday AND on Sunday. Sunday I was so fed up that Cal and I went early and put every single item that was left in that house outside and started cleaning, and thank goodness, I was out of there by noon (angry and hungry and exhausted and sore—but gosh darnit, done!). Got back to new house, took a shower, and took Emily and Sarah to the shopping centre so they could finally get things they needed for comfort and meals.

By this point, we were pretty well set up in the new house (I mean, it’s livable, but there are still boxes everywhere you turn). I could have taken time to write some blog posts then, but we still don’t have internet here (as of February 12, 10:07 a.m.).

Yesterday we had loads of fun, which I think I’ll write up in a separate travel-y blog post later. Let’s just say, raspberry margarita slurpees from 7/11 were the low point of the day—and those were probably the most amazing things I have ever tasted!