Pre-holiday events

25-29 June 2010
Well, hello!

I guess it has been quite a while since I last wrote. A lot has happened, so I will have to break up this trip over the next couple weeks possibly. So I will start where I left off. A couple days before the trip, I purchased my ticket home. I will be returning to the States on 21 November. Just in time for the holidays. I am pretty excited about it.

On Sunday, I sang with the Songsters. It was interesting, because everyone else was in uniform. I was the only one in colour, so I stuck out like a sore thumb. It kind of made me self conscious, but people were really nice. I had a lot of people coming up to me telling me it was nice to see me singing up there. So that made me feel good.

Alison and I experienced another Vegemite catastrophe. It was not a pleasant taste, especially when we had no idea we were eating it!

Also, on Sunday, Alison and I got down to business with our Australia trip. We got all our flights of where we want to go in Australia. We booked one tour and hostel. We also booked our flights to two other countries...Fiji and Samoa! We are quite excited about this trip. We didn't finish everything, but we got some stuff done. We just wanted to get the bigger stuff out of the way before our big trip in New Zealand. It was frustrating when we encountered card problems, but we got it worked out finally.

Alison left for her big trip on Monday, and the Captain and his wife left Monday as well. So I had the house to myself Monday night. I finally got down to packing Monday night and organising everything. Tuesday was agonising trying to get through work when my mind was on picking up my mom at the airport. Everyone said goodbye and wished me well on my trip. They were so sweet!

Finally, I got on the bus and went to the city where I got another bus to take me to the airport. There were some interesting people on the bus who were talking loudly and obnoxiously. I really meet interesting characters while riding the bus. I got to the airport and ran inside. Mom was the only person sitting down and reading. As I approached, she saw me. It was a tender moment...

Then we rushed back to the bus to go to another bus stop so that we could go home. I had never been out this way, so I really had to pay attention to where we were going. This was hard to do as I have not seen my mom in over 5 months and she had lots of stuff to share about her Australia experience. It was so nice to catch up!

So then we made it home and quickly got ready to go back into town. I took her to a great Greek place that has amazing lamb souvlakis. I know it sounds funny to go to a Greek place here, but there are so many Greek places here, that I figure it is practically a kiwi meal. My mom loved it. Then we walked around the city a while, and then went back on the bus to go home. At home, we packed and got everything ready. Then I had her try pavlova, hokey pokey ice cream, and whipped cream. A true kiwi dessert.

By this time, it was nearly midnight, so we quickly got ready for bed, as we would have a very very early morning tomorrow!

And now starts the holiday!