As many of you know, since you were there, Chris and I have just returned from three weeks in Australia. It was a trip for me to catch up with my family and friends for the first time in a year and a half, but it was also an opportunity to get some much needed sunshine. Luckily, despite the very full schedule, we fit in pretty much everything we wanted to. Read on to find out all about it.

Chris and I both got sick the day after Christmas, and
unfortunately I stayed sick until well into February, and therefore well into
our trip. So the flight to Australia didn’t go as smoothly as one would
normally like. On the descent into Heathrow I thought I was going to burst an
eardrum, and had to bite my hand and stamp my feet to prevent myself from
screaming. Luckily, thanks to some advice from a friend on Facebook, I managed
to find some flight earplugs in the chemist at Heathrow which made the next 3
flights more bearable… at least from an eardrum-bursting perspective.

I had been to the doctor the day before, who had prescribed
some antibiotics and codeine tablets to help suppress my horrible, annoying
cough. Unfortunately the codeine made me nauseous and I could only take it
every 6 hours or so, and it only seemed to work for an hour or so at a time. At
least 4 of our fellow passengers came and offered me cough drops and sympathy,
but most of the others just gave me death-stares which clearly read, “Oh just
DIE for God’s sake and give the rest of us some peace!” I can’t really blame
them; I probably would have been thinking the same thing if it hadn’t been me
doing the coughing.

We flew from Oslo to London to Hong Kong to Melbourne, then
spent the night in Melbourne and flew to Adelaide in the morning. A pretty
exhausting way to do it, but at least we arrived relatively fresh for the start
of our holiday, having gotten quite a good sleep in a little motel near
Melbourne Airport. It was kind of frustrating being in Melbourne and not being
able to see Nessy, but we didn’t get to the hotel until after 11pm, so Ness and
I satisfied ourselves by texting each other lyrics from “Somewhere Out There”.

We spent the first couple of nights with Dad and Jo, and
then met up with Mum’s side of the family at a picnic for Uncle Jeff’s birthday
in Bonython Park. It was a great opportunity to catch up with the whole gang
(or most of them anyway) at once, so I didn’t have to find time to see them
individually. Even this early in the trip we were starting to feel that we didn’t
have enough time to see everyone and do everything we wanted to.

After the picnic, I headed down to Mum’s place and Chris met
up with some of his old Razorbacks (American football) teammates to see a game
and have a night out with the boys. It was so nice to have some girly time with
Mum to gossip and catch up. I can’t remember the last time we had so much time
alone together. She had bought me a massive bag of Toobs as well, which I ate
until I felt like I was going to burst.

On the Monday, Chris and I checked into our apartment in
Glenelg for the week. Unfortunately this was right about when the weather
turned to crap and stayed there… for about a week. Typical! But it gave us lots
of time to go shopping and lounge around. We met up with Crispian and Michelle
for dinner on the Tuesday for Crispian’s birthday, and Mum and I went to see
the Bangarra Dance Theatre on the Thursday.

That weekend we relaxed back at Dad and Jo’s and the weather
picked itself up a bit. Chris managed to get pretty sunburnt sitting outside
reading for half an hour with no sunscreen. We had both forgotten how
unforgiving the Australian sun is. Sunday we went to the beach for the first
time and I managed to get a little bit of colour. The water was fantastic, with
almost no seaweed (my main objection to swimming in the sea… besides the fact
that it has tried to kill me once or twice, of course).

Monday we went back to Melbourne for three days with Ian and
Nessy. She looks amazing, and I would never have guessed she’d had major
surgery only eight weeks before, if not for the fact that she looked and was
healthier than I have seen her in probably five or more years. We also realized
that Chris had never seen her healthy, so he probably had a bigger surprise
than I did. We spent lots of time hanging out, talking, laughing and, of
course, shopping! Nessy and I went crazy at DFO (direct outlet mall) and I
bought so much stuff that we had to buy a new suitcase to bring it all home in.

As a birthday/Christmas present, we gave Nessy a return trip
to Europe for whenever she’s ready to take it. She cried. Then I cried. Then we
all laughed and went down to the hospital cafeteria for lunch. Mmm chiko roll.

When we got back to Adelaide, the pace really picked up when
we realized we only had a few days left of our trip. The weather REALLY got hot and so we spent another two days at the beach, trying desperately to take some tan home with us. It worked… or at least I got burnt and Chris got tanned.
Unfortunately the sunburn, which eventually turned a lovely shade of dark
brown, is completely hidden by winter clothes now. Dammit.

We spent Saturday night with Nat and Dean after dinner at
Windy Point. We revived the old “Bite the Box” game from our (very) drunken New
Years Eve bash of 05/06 (I won again), after which Nat’s dog, Hamish, vomited on my leg. Mmm. Nat was
mortified, but I was too drunk to care.

I spent one last night with Mum before driving her to the
airport on Sunday morning so she could fly over to Melbourne to be with Ian and
Ness in their last three weeks there. Chris had one more night with the
football team. Then on Sunday I ripped off Jeff’s picnic idea and invited
everyone we hadn’t seen yet to join us in Bonython Park for lunch. It was 37 degrees,
and I was worried no one would show up, but the turnout was actually excellent.
We got a great spot under a big tree and caught some nice breezes across the
park. We stayed for about 5 hours catching up with everyone and drinking beer.
Lovely.

Monday was a bit panicked as we rushed around saying final
goodbyes, doing last minute shopping and packing. 38 degree heat is fine when
you’re lying still, preferably at the beach, but rushing around trying to get
things done (especially in an upstairs room) is pretty sucky. Luckily we had time left to visit Crispian and Michelle (and their little peanut) one last time and go to Gringos for dinner with Dad and Jo. Mmm nachos. Incidentally, I realised
that I have been going to Gringos for some 14 years and have never NOT ordered
Nachos.

Tuesday we began our epic journey home which, thanks to
delays in both Melbourne and Heathrow, broke all previous records getting us
home in 42 hours. Our flight from Singapore to London got diverted to Brussels
for refuelling, much to the chagrin of the guy sitting next to us; he was
travelling to Brussels, but they wouldn’t let him get off the plane! When we
finally touched down at Heathrow, one of the first announcements we heard was
that flights to Brussels were cancelled due to bad weather. We bumped into the
guy a couple of times in the airport while we were passing time. Poor thing
looked like a zombie. I hope he got there in the end.

On our final flight back to Oslo I woke up to the
disconcerting sound of the left engine stopping. We were sitting right on the
wing, and so we could both hear and feel it stop. I began to think, “If we have
come all this way, and taken this long to do it, and we crash now, I am going
to be PISSED!”

Luckily it sputtered back to life soon after and the rest of
the flight was pretty uneventful. We had bumped into some fellow Oslovians at
Heathrow, who turned out to live just down the street from us, so we had
someone to share a cab with when we got back. That was nice.

So there it is. Three weeks back in Australia. We left with
one suitcase and came back with three, plus a box of stuff I dug out of the
pile stored at Dad’s house.

I must say a big THANK YOU to my mum for lending us her car
for the trip. It made life so much easier to be able to get ourselves around.
Also a big WOOHOO to Nessy who has done SO well after her transplant. And big
CONGRATULATIONS go to Crispian and Michelle, who are expecting their first
little ‘un in September, and Amy and Tom who are expecting theirs in August,
and finally to Shayli and Adam who had their second, Alana Kay, a couple of
days before we left.