When you plan to marry a man, eventually it means you're going to have to introduce him to your family.
When we first started planning this trip we weren't engaged, it was mostly about me wanting to see my family and wanting to show Russ Melbourne. We'd been planning it for a while as it was nearly a year and a half since I'd seen them last time. Going back this time felt different though, I had Russ to travel with, which made the long journey that much better, and I had a team of 4 people I was managing back here which made leaving for that length of time feel like a bigger deal.
It might just be a level of organisation I wasn't aware existed within myself before, but in prepping for this trip I unleashed the organisational beast.
I got Howard Hughes organised.
We had an itinerary, which is not so crazy, it was mostly the test packing that set off alarms.
You read me, test packing, I don't know if anyone else does this but I am now a fan.
Test packing for me, basically involves making yourself a list of what you want to take on your trip, enough clothes to wear in different weathers and social situations but not too many so that you don't end up actually wearing them, any make up or toiletry stuff I need, enough entertainment for the flight, presents for people and my on board survival kit which I put in a zip lock bag for when we go through security.
My Survival kit is a small bottle of a face spray like Breath of fresh air from lush to make your skin feel nice after you've been in the dry air for ages, facial moisturiser, hand cream, nasal spray because after hours in 20% relative humidity your nose starts to feel really dry, lip balm, Kalms Valerian sleep aids to keep me chilled out and Bach rescue remedy if the sleep aids aren't doing their job. Accumulating all that has been a process of evolution but between those and my travel pillow I can take just about anything.
Back to the test packing, I make my list, then I drag out the suitcase and I get it all in there, I edit based on whether I think I really am going to need something or not and get myself down to a final amount of things I want to take then I weigh the suitcase to get a sense of how much stuff I can bring back with me. I got down to 10 Kg's in the suitcase which gave me 13kgs of stuff I could bring back and I was up to 23kgs on the way back. Its very easy to acquire things when you head back to your home country and see all the things you left behind last time.
Because of the test packing, when it came down to actual packing it only took 30 mins. I made a list of the contents of our suitcases once we'd done our final test pack and then we were good to go. Had our suitcases been lost then the entire contents was listed and kept with our travel documents. Huzzar!
I worked a half day on my last day of work, mostly to make sure everything was handed over and no one needed me for the next month, checked in to our flights online so we could get good seats in a bank of 2 not to far back in the tail, then came home, packed, and headed to the Yotel.
Another thing I recommend, get as close as you can to the terminal the night before so you can get as much sleep as possible and have a shower right before you have to get on the plane. I always feel the benefit of it. Yotel is in terminal 4 where we fly out with Etihad. That means we have no travel time getting to the airport which is awesome when you're about to go on a 24 hour flight.
I hope I never have to do this flight without Russ again because it makes all the difference having the right travelling companion. It was the longest flight he'd ever been on but he did fantastically. He did have a tiny moment half way through the longer second leg after our brief stop over in Abu Dhabi where he started to get a bit restless but I do the same thing. He kept me sane, happy and entertained, I wont leave home without him.
I do love flying back into oz, as soon as we start to get close to land I keep sneaking peeks out of the window so I can see the second the coast is in sight.
We approach from the Indian Ocean so you see the red of the Western Australian desert first, then its more sea as we cut over the Great Australian Bight and then swoop back in as we get to Victoria. Jenny and the kids met us at the airport which was awesome. They're exactly who I want to see at that point. They made us a sign and got us both little presents and I'd gotten them giant slabs of duty free chocolate in Abu Dhabi.
Then we caught the airport bus into Southern Cross station and caught the Vline train to Bendigo.
Russ saw his first bogans, I'd told him of bogans and he asked me in hushed, slightly reverent tones as we waited on the platform “Honey, are those bogans?” He recognised them from their mullets and moccies.
He loved the Vline train, so clean and spacious. That's something cool about showing someone around your old town, they make you appreciate it more. It was after midnight by the time we got to Dad's place. I dragged Russ out on to the deck so he could see the stars, he thought I was being silly, he'd seen stars before, but when I made him look up I did get a wow. You can see stars here, but you never see so many.
First day there, in order to stave off the jet lag, I marched Russ like a nazi into the centre of town, didn't take much convincing though, he was dying to explore. It was good friday and Easter in Bendigo is a big deal, they have a huge parade through the centre of town and that was what we were aiming to see.
We parked ourselves in a cafe at an outside table and ordered breakfast and coffee and the coffee was amazing. I had low expectations of Bendigo coffee but they proved me wrong. It has to be the right person on the machine though, we went back there a couple of times and got less awesome coffee so there was a little bit of luck happening on that day as well.
Slow wandering around Bendigo, reacquainting myself with all that I had missed. Apart from the decent water and the people, Target, the market place, showing Russ that golden gaytimes and coon cheese really do exist in Woolworths supermarket. Getting a boston bun from Bakers Delight. The little things. Over the next few days, I took Russ to the botanical gardens, the art gallery, the chinese museum and got to spend more time with the kids before we headed down to Daylesford to meet up with Yvette, Anthony and Miki.
Russ loved Daylesford and I loved introducing him to my friends which was almost more nerve wracking than introducing him to the family. We spent a couple of days seeing the sights, drinking the coffee and hanging out before heading back to Bendigo to get our stuff and head down to Melbourne for our anniversary.
We spent a couple of days in St Kilda first, hanging out with John and the kids and meeting up with friends before we checked into a serviced apartment for our anniversary week in Melbourne. I am loving all the serviced apartments springing up in Melbourne for entirely selfish reasons. We got an apartment with a balcony, a washer and drier and a little kitchenette and it was perfect for what we needed. After a few days of travelling around and visiting people it gave us a chance to have some time to ourselves, get some washing done at the same time and get a fantastic view of Melbourne. We were just off La Trobe St so we were walking distance to public transport and everything we needed. We had our anniversary dinner at Bistro Vue which is my favourite restaurant in Melbourne and spent the day before just wandering around to the theosophical book shop, the haunted bookshop and all the lanes to see the graffiti. I was showing Russ my favourite things in Melbourne. We'd already been to the Vic Market with the kids the day before and I'd introduced him to hot jam donuts.
I took him out to ceres which he really got in to and then down Brunswick st which he wanted to move to, before we met up with Anniene in the afternoon and headed to Stalactites for dinner.
The rest of the week was mostly wandering, lunches, dinners or coffee's with people, a perfect way to spend your days. The rest of our time in oz passed in circuits of wanting to go back and experience the things that we'd loved so much in our first couple of weeks. Me loving remembering them and Russ loving them for the first time as well as getting a last few moments with friends and family we knew we were going to miss when we had to go again.
We saw a fantastic exhibition at the Victoria Library on illustrations for children's books and walked the length of Lygon street after hitting Brunetti's for coffee and cakes. Spent some time in trades hall checking out their bookshop.
Our last day was really hard, apart from the fact that I had a cold and had to ditch my cold and flu medication lest I be arrested in Abu Dhabi for drug smuggling (Importing Codine is illegal in the emirates) and we were a little paranoid about travelling in the emirates when we were unmarried (Also technically illegal) it was a day of lasts.
Our last chance to have lunch at Cafe Vue, our last chance to have coffee at Brunetti's, our last chance to go to ACMI our last chance to just be in Melbourne. We made a solemn trip to the airport, checked ourselves in, and then saw the cafe vue airside in international departures!!!! Okay so it was our last last chance to go to cafe vue.
Its true what they say though, there really is no place like home.
Next up: Do you Dubai?
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