Departure 20th November 2005!

Now, from the very start: Sunday the 20th arrived far too quickly but to my surprise I was pretty well organised... especially considering the fun social events that occured right up until the night before leaving =) Departure day was a very memorable experience. It started with the drive up with mum, dad and Nishan which was great. Then we joined Daniel, Matty and their parents, Becky and Tony. I don't quite remember how it happened after this but the group of two families grew from small to very large with a convoy of people from Rochedale and Brisbane bidding us farewell. It was so special. We really are so blessed to have been given such a great network of friends to support us. I felt very special to be able to open some great pressies on the plane. Thanks Jaye, Kath, Jordy, Nishan and Jo for your lovely gifts.I particularly enjoyed receiving my new necklace which I promptly put on. Cadbury choc was also a great treat!



From here we flew to Auckland, New Zealand. We enjoyed some journalling and reading time in the airport before boarding our double-decker plane. We settled ourslelves in while waiting for all other passengers to board. When it was time to un-dock (get off the dock?)... it became obvious that there was a petrol leak from the wing of the plane on our side.

We had a great view of it...


I was unfortunate enough to be seated next to "Loudmouth Larry"... American guy from Boston who decided he would walk through the cabin announcing that the plane was "losing thousands of gallons of fuel" and that "this plane ain't goin' ANYWHERE!" A really great way to keep everyone relaxed on an 11 hour flight... Quite funny really. kinda highlighted the differences between us... him catastrophising, us sitting there saying "cool, let's take a photo and draw it in Danny's fun book"...

Well, Larry didn't stop there. He popped a few sleeping pills so there was no hope for me escaping the mouth open snoring and nose snorting... but hey, I perfected the 'ballet-like' jump over him to get to the bathroom =)... SO... after sitting and watching the gradual emergence of emergency crews to contian the spill, the decision is made to get everyone off of the plane with our valuables only. After sitting in the terminal for some time. We are informed that a new plane was being prepared and that we would have to wait 2-ish hours for it to be ready. We were allowed on the plane 10 at a time to retrieve the rest of our belongings and were then issued food vouchers to the only two restaurants in the terminal (Burger King and a cafe)... (pictured: the food voucher...) Line up was massive but we got there and thoroughly enjoyed our meal.

Departed at 11:30pm (4 hours later). Flight ok. didn't sleep much... Larry used up all my elbow space... Approaching LA, Larry began to tell us all about his trip to Carns (he had no idea there was in 'i' in there but i decided it was too much to correct him)... Not only did he pronounce it wrong, but then decided that he needed to show us exactly where the Cape of York was located in Australia... Hmmm.. Great experience none-the-less.

Finally made it to LA... but because the 20th lasted so long for me (like living the same day twice), I'm going to start a new post.

Anisia =)