Adeventures in Australia

Our day leaving started busy, we were rushing around finishing packing, making phone calls and getting wonderful blessings from Dad. He cried through my blessing and that made me lose it as well as Mom and Quintin. We packed up Dad’s truck and after a final stop at Walmart we took our car and animals to Quintin’s mom, Ursula. I thought that it would be so hard to leave my boys but I was so stressed out that my brain didn’t give me time to be weepy. That would come later. My parents dropped us off at the airport and even Quintin’s dad came to see us off. We sat and prolonged the saying goodbye for as long as possible, but we had an airplane to catch so we finally said our goodbyes. Quintin’s dad took pictures of my puffy sad face. It was really hard for me to let go of my mom but we knew it had to happen and after lots of hugs and tears we were on our way.
After I walked away from my parents I kept looking back until they were out of sight and still sobbing I went through the security. Without thinking I walked through and beeped. I told the security that I had a pacemaker and they put me in this clear room to sit on a chair and have a large woman frisk me. So there I was, still sobbing with my arms extended in the air being frisked as people walked by staring at me probably thinking that I had done something terribly wrong.
I was OK from SLC to LA, I think I cried once flying over Provo, but than again Provo always makes me cry. When we landed in LA we thought it would take a long time to get our baggage and find the international terminal but it took us no time and was really easy. The airplane from LA to Auckland was so huge and because I had to have oxygen on the plane, we were the first ones on board and were already watching a movie by the time we took off. I took a sleeping pill and slept through half of the fight. The other half we were eating the most delicious airplane food I had ever had and watched movies.
We sat in the Auckland airport for about 5 hours and I was wide eyed the whole time, after all this was my first time out of the country. I noticed the green hills outside that were so lush, the newspaper read about the All Blacks (NZ rugby team) and we were the only American accents I heard. Once again we were on the plane to Cairns. I was on oxygen again, and couldn’t recline my seat and so it was a tougher flight. Quintin tried to sleep with a blanket over his head, we were right by the bathroom so everyone that came by was laughing at the big lump next to me.
When we landed my first impressions of Cairns was that is was really truly a rainforest!! So green and beautiful. Walking of off the ramp from the plane we saw a little gecko on the window and I knew I would love this place. Customs was super easy to go through, I didn’t need the piles of documents that I had with me, we just gave them our passports, a cute dog smelled our bags and they were x-rayed, done that fast. I had been wearing Ted hose the whole 28 hours of traveling so I wouldn’t get blood clots in my legs and I ripped those things off as soon as we landed. My feet were huge! They were so swollen and puffy but back to normal the next day.
We called a hotel from the airport and the driver that came to get us was this young German kid that was super stinky. He took us to the hotel and they couldn’t find our room. They realized that the phone lines at the airport had switched so we had to go to a different place. The stinky German came to get us again (not to mention our 4 giant suitcases) and took us to a hostel!! We paid for the private expensive $85 dollar a night “suite” but when we got to the room it was as big as the King size bed we paid for (which was really two twin beds pushed together with a king sized sheet over it. The bathroom smelled like a sewer and it was directly under the planes that landed. Super fun (sarcasm thick) I laid on the bed and lost it, crying and crying. Poor Quintin was second guessing everything. But then I looked around the room and started laughing hard. This was the majestic Australia that I have been dreaming of for a year and a half. After that I was good.
The first day after we arrived we decided to walk around town and get cell phones and hit up some realtors for a nice rental. We didn’t realize that the city was half closed because of flooding and it was going to rain all day long. We still dived in and walked around trying to find a phone store. We stumbled upon a magical land called a Mall!! I was so very happy I felt like I was home. We bought cell phones, YAY. As we were walking down the road Quintin told me to look up, so I did and what I thought was a big bird was a big BAT! I freaked inside a little bit when I saw that there were hundreds of them in the trees surrounding us. They are called flying foxes and are as big as a house cat with a huge wing span, harmless but still quite creepy.
More to come when my neck has uncramped………
By the way, if you have made it this far reading, you are a true mate!