A Funny Story (& last day in Australia)

It’s 6:40pm on August 12th. We’ve finished our Connections Trip, said goodbye to a few of our new friends, and spent the day doing a last Australia shopping run and other errands like Matt getting his hair cut. Now, we’re back in our hotel, waiting to go out for a last dinner with some of the Connections crew staying in Cairnes for an extra night. Matt’s checking his email while we wait.

Alright, there’s the backstory. The funny part starts when Matt reads a “Flight Reminder” email from Virgin Blue -- the airline we’re flying on tomorrow to get us to Melbourne. Somehow, though, this reminder says we’re flying out August 12th at 8:30pm. This can’t be right, there must be some kind of mistake. Matt checks the trip itinerary we’ve been living off of since we left - which says August 13th as suspected.

But...

That didn’t account for the International Date Line (or as we now like to call it, the International-Scramble-to-Catch-Your-Flight-Because-You’re-Leaving-Today-Not-Tomorrow Line).

Matt laughed hysterically, Kristen held her breath (and cried a bit on the inside).

We didn’t have much time - so we ran up to our room and packed up all of our stuff with the awesome help of Amy and Ashley (our Canadian friends), then ran downstairs to catch a cab to Cairnes airport. On the way we said goodbye to everyone who were waiting for us to come down to go out to dinner, not packed and heading to the airport.

Long story short, we made it to the airport, checked in, got through security and made it onto the plane successfully. Thanks again to Amy and Ashley for your help!

We arrived in Melbourne at midnight or just before - and had to find a place to stay for under $300, which we did - but it was craptastic. Kristen and I both agree that this hostel has been our worst yet. I don’t even remember what it was called as I write this on a train in England - but it was bad. There was no heat and Melbourne is close to Antarctica Kristen reminds me.

The next day we awoke disease free, got packed up for the long haul to London, and headed back to Melbourne’s airport.

We’ll save the juicy stories about our flights for the next post.

Farewell.