I think we're almost over our jet lag. It's pretty tough to fly half way around the world twice in two weeks and my old brain has been making me suffer. In addition to the normal time difference we came back to Toronto with daylight-savings having started, so all our clocks had to change as well. The time change was slightly in our favour jet-lag-wise so I guess we should be thankful.
I've had so many conflicting emotions over the last few weeks. It's taken me a few days to get my head back together before I could start posting anything coherent here. You can be the judge of how well I succeed.
We left Toronto just before 7pm on a Wednesday, flew 5 hrs to LA and waited a couple of hours in the gate lounge for our Qantas flight to Melbourne. It was a trippy to hear all the aussie accents around us, far more aussies in one place than we'd experienced in 18 months. We chatted to various people, some returning from holidays, others in similar circumstances to ourselves and finally returning home after a long stay in North America. Our flight left on time with only one hitch, the in-flight entertainment system was on the blink meaning 15.5 hours in a confined space with little to do. In the end we had 5 seats and 4 working screens so we were better off than most. We left the kids to have working screens and Jo and I tag-teamed reading/sleeping with the other working screen. In all I think that we got an hour of so's sleep, the kids fared a little better getting several hours of kip. The sun chased us over the Pacific and won the race very slowly, dawn taking about an hour to fully break as we pushed 1,000 kph westwards. We landed in Melbourne around 9:30am Friday, having completely skipped Thursday due to the date-line, and immediately Jo and I commented on a slightly different smell in the air, not unpleasant at all, just the smell of home. Maybe it was simply due to the warm weather, we're not used to smelling too much in sub-zero temps.
Customs was a hoot, I had insisted on bringing about 30+ cans of Canadian beer home with us to share with my aussie mates. Of course this was way more than the duty-free limit so I had to declare it. I knew that this was going to happen, what I didn't know was that one can had burst in the luggage and soaked some of the gifts. As soon as you declare anything you're up for a full quarantine inspection too, so every bag was x-rayed and hand searched. The kids wanted the bathroom and couldn't leave, Jo was steaming ever-so-slightly at my burst beer can and the officials were surprised to find yet another 6 pack of beer after I thought that they had everything (resulting in the need to re-calc the duty I had to pay), I was glad they believed me when I said I forgot how much beer I had and wasn't trying to get one past them.
So it was almost 11am by the time we got out of the airport and met up with my sister Trish, bro-in-law Kean and our favourite niece Ciara. The kids were really happy to see each other and we met our newest nephew Liam fore the first time, he being born while we were away. He's a sensation, just grinning away at us like he knew instinctively we were family.
I hadn't posted anything on the blog regarding our trip home and that might have left some of you wondering why. Jo's school girlfriends had organised a weekend away down at Ocean Grove and we thought it would be nice to surprise them by having Jo simply turn up unannounced. There were heaps of emails over the last several months that Jo received and had to reply 'Wish I could be there, have a glass of red for me', all the while knowing that she was going to turn up for that glass in person. So we headed for Burwood and Jo's parents where we'd quickly visit Stan and Barb, then leave Jo to be picked up by Fran (the only girlfriend who knew she was coming). The kids and I then headed back home to Monbulk and Jo scooted off down the coast for a few nights.
Coming home was going to be pretty weird not matter what, the garden was looking great despite the drought, but everything had grown a lot. Inside looked more familiar but naturally Bill and Jess had some of their own stuff so it wasn't completely familiar, leaving me feeling a bit bewildered to mix with my exhaustion. Our good friends the van den Bergs dropped in to see us and Trish, Ciara and Liam turned up with the rest of our luggage. A few beers, fish and chips and an interupted nights sleep closed out the first day.
Now I'm not going to relate the entire 10 or so days, that's going to bore you to death, I think it's enough to say that our trip was in no way a holiday. There were so many people to catch up with, so many things to try to get done. In the end we still didn't get to see everyone we would have liked to, so if we didn't get to see you we're really sorry, there was only so much we could fit into a short trip. It was barbie after barbie, we made it to the beach once which was nice. In all I'd say that we arrived back in Toronto both sad to have left our home and glad to be back at home simultaneously (I told you it was a weird feeling). The cold weather is coming to an end, albeit slowly, and summer is on the horizon.
We don't know how much longer we'll be in Canada, but whether it's a month or another year we do know one thing for sure. It's something that I think everyone who travels for an extended period would agree with, this trip has made us fall in love with Canada and only made us love Australia more.
Andy, out.
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