More air travel adventures...

Thursday November 17

Julia and I spent our last day in Brisbane in Roma Street Parklands, a serene park in the middle of the city. One of the most impressive things about Australia so far is how you can be in a bustling city one moment and then be in a park or rainforest in the next.

 

When entering the park we walked through a small wooden bridge that had cold mist coming up from the ground. I presume this was to water the bamboo and other plants that were growing around it. We then walked around what seemed to be another rainforest before we found a playground where we happily played for a good long time. We met some very nice young children; one little girl see-saw-ed with Julia and another came to retrieve my sunglasses for me when they flew off my head while I was on the rocking black swan. We then went on the most interesting set of swings. They were ordinary swings other than that they were attached to a see-saw. When both Julia and I were swinging nothing seemed to feel different but when Julia suddenly jumped off I went flying upwards while still swinging back and forth. We both agreed that Australian playground regulations fall somewhere between the U.S and New Zealand.

 

We then walked through the gardens where we saw bushes cut into elephant and kangaroo shapes. There was also a plant that smelled amazing but I could not figure out which plant it was. There are also a bunch of lizards everywhere. They basically take the place of squirrels in the U.S.

 

After dwaddling about in the cool shade, we walked into town for some lunch. I was going for a homey Asian theme so I got a pork bun and red bean bun at an Asian bakery and topped that up with some Jasmine green milk tea. It was really a taste of home, especially the tea.

 

At around 3:30pm we headed for the train station to go to the airport for our flight to Sydney. At the airport we had another interesting experience. Long story made short, Julia and I went up to the counter to get our boarding passes and the woman basically said that our bags were too big and that we could only have 10kg per person for a carry on. However, this was exasterbated when she decided that she wanted to weigh all of our stuff a bunch of times and then told us that we had to re-pack and do this and that or else we had to pay $80AUD to check a bag. Here are my thoughts: 1.) Why would you weigh 2 different passengers luggages together? 2.) It doesn’t matter how we re-pack because it’s going to be the same total weight. 3.) We have already flown with all of our bags without checking them. 4.) Why are you making this harder for everyone?

This was randomly in the park. Yay computers!

Anyways, after attempting to repack and really getting no where because our total weight was 22kg so no matter what each of us were going to have over 10kg anyways, I gave up, a little passive aggressively and went to self-check in. By doing so, I couldn’t sit next to Julia on the plane but I really did not want to deal with the woman again. I got my boarding pass and fearing that that woman would stop me and re-weigh my bags another five times I ran to the departure gates. It wasn’t until Julia texted me “WHERE ARE YOU?” that I realized that in my passive aggressive frustrations and fright I had run to Qantas security instead of JetStar security. This was about 20 minutes before we had to board our flight so it was another frantic run across the airport to find my Julia and my gate. Julia told me later that if I had not shown up when I had she would have had someone call me over the loudspeaker like a lost child. Anyways, I then got on the massive line to go through security and guess what?! They had to check me for explosives again. I am such an explosive person, apparently. We both made it onto our plane and all is okay and we are both in the hostel now.

So I’m not too much of a JetStar fan at the moment, as you may be able to tell, but I’d have to say that the flight was pretty smooth and I saw one of the prettiest sunsets ever. It was a sunset but instead of the sun setting it was more like we were landing so the bright yellow became a golden orange and then dark red and purple and pink and then white cloud and then gray clouds and then airport. It was beautiful. It was also one of the smoothest landings ever. Kudos to you JetStar, you’ve redeemed yourself a little bit.

A little bit about the hostel we are staying in. As you may remember everything was booked out except for this one which is called Kangaroo Bakpak (yes, spelled with no c’s) and it is in Surry Hills. It’s a cute little backpackers that provides free breakfast and laundry. The man running it is also a nice French (I think he is French) man. He showed us around the hostel, got us our sheets and keys and then even brought our bags up to our room for us. We are on the top floor so like 3^rd or 4^th floor. While this hostel is pretty nice, it is also very very very male dominated. I have seen one other girl here, other than me and Julia. Both Julia and I are on the top bunk, and Julia’s bed seems to be okay but mine shakes and creeks like madness. Without any exaggeration, I am typing and the bed is moving. These are going to be a very squeaky three nights. The person in the bed underneath me is another French man here in Sydney on a work visa. The guy under Julia is this Asian dude that is pacing back and forth around the room nervously scratching his head and it is driving me crazy. I want to throw an anvil at him.