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Published: December 14th 2009
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Qantas Drama!
We made it to the Adelaide paper :) And so it begins. I awoke on Tuesday morning without the excitement that I had expected. It had been an emotional lead up to this day and I think that I was pretty mentally and emotionally drained. I think Dan described it well “I’m not sure how I felt because it was a feeling I haven’t felt before, the was happiness, sadness, excitement and a sense of complete of feeling nothing as no one emotion really stood out more than the other”.
At this point I would have been happy to stay home and think about the achievements I have made at school over the past year, the new friends that I have made. But more importantly, be with Dan and my family. As I get older I realise that you can never take these things for granted.
It was a last minute dash to repack our bags and check that we haven’t left anything behind. We travelled over the Gateway Bridge and stole a last glimpse of Brisbane. It was a quick drop off and Carole and I gave each other a last hug and of course once again I began to cry. I haven’t stopped these last few days. I don’t talk at the moment because I start to cry.
We were excited about making ourselves comfortable in the Business Class Lounge and Dan quickly logged onto Skype for a chat to his mum before our flight was ready for boarding. We flew into Adelaide and from the air it looks very pretty. We got through security and customs and of course I got searched for explosives for the second time today. As we entered the International Gates we began looking for the ever important Business Class Lounge to lap up and comfort we could before our adventure. We were to be disappointed because it was in the domestic part of the airport and because we had come through immigration and customs we couldn’t go back. Adelaide needs to catch up. So we sat in the gate for the next hour waiting to board the plane to Singapore.
We finally boarded the plane and sat in our business class seats. Wow! Pure comfort - we are definitely flying home like this especially if it is a long haul flight! I could not believe the room and how comfortable the chairs were. Dan was being a sweetheart and showing me how to work all the gadgets but I was still feeling sorry for myself and wasn’t that excited about it all. We taxied out to the runway and awaited departure. The captain came over the intercom and said that there was a problem with one of the doors and the latch to deploy the life rafts was faulty. The captain said we had to turn around and rectify the problem. That was the start of the waiting. With announcements only coming every hour or so they told us that they had to get parts from interstate and they would be here within an hour and half. They also said that it would take an hour to fix. We had to wait two hours in the boarding lounge until they got word on the parts. We were all hungry so they feed us dry biscuits with cheese. They soon realised that they couldn’t do that for very long so they processed our passports again let us back out with a dinner voucher. We ate and headed straight to the Business Class Lounge where Dan sussed out a glass of wine for me and a bourbon and coke for him.
They called us back to the airport lounge again were once again we had to process our passports. We then sat around for another hour before the flight was delayed again and set back another hour again. The decision was made by 9:00 that the plane was not going to be ready and they would put us up in a hotel for the night. We couldn’t believe our bad luck but we were still pretty calm about the whole thing. We had to go down through immigration again and collect our bags. The bags finally came out we quickly collected Dan’s bag. Then we waited for mine......
I stood there and waited while Dan went and organised our accommodation. All of the passengers were beginning to lose patience the staff were bearing the brunt of it. Dan finally got our voucher and came back to find me still waiting for my bag. Most passengers had already left on the bus to the hotel. Dan began to get really worried when he poked his head through the hanging belt flaps and there was no one there off loading bags. Dan lost his patience and started to get cranky with the staff and I began to get upset - we have had enough. We were directed to the lost baggage claim and found it, thank goodness.
We got to the hotel by taxi vouchers and checked into the Intercontinental Hotel. We got into the foyer and found yet another line up to get our room. By this time we were shattered and just wanted to go to sleep. We got into the room and it was beautiful. We had a quick shower and fell straight into bed. I can’t believe that just waiting around can make you so tired. We both just got to sleep when the phone rang. It was the hotel staff letting us know about food and phone vouchers and the flight time for the next day......
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