What was that about bending space and time?
I thought it would be worthwhile giving an update to my last post.
We all sat around in the airport some more, until 11:01pm. There is now no plane, no crew and all remaining flights have been cancelled, including mine. The general manager of the airline announced that everyone may now piss off from the airport please, if you live in the “general area” they would reimburse you for a taxi ride home (but not back again) or if you were from outside the area they would reimburse you for a hotel stay, but like, you have to find your own room at this time of night by yourself. Yay! The queue for the taxi is several hundred people long, so after collecting my bag I kept myself amused by sitting (well, standing) on hold to the airline customer care line for an eternity (and getting nowhere mind you). I fought the urge to scream when the guy behind me (who obviously was a priveleged frequent flyer judging by his conversation with other similarly attired pot bellied middled aged men with boat shoes and pink sweaters arranged over their shoulders) had a 2 minute phone call to re-book his flight. I finally got home at about 12:30am, and then tried several more times to speak to someone about rebooking a flight. It wasn’t becoming urgent or anything – I just need to be 800km away by 9am that morning. No rush, everyone just take their time.
Finally got to speak to a real person at 1:30am, and got myself a seat on a 6am flight. That means getting up at 4am, awesome. Arrive at airport at 5am, discover that the my flight (the first flight of the morning) is already delayed by 15 min. Running on 2.5 hours sleep, I’m not really in a fit state to have a tanty but I hope that my face adequately displays “unimpressed”. Not sure it does. Try to do time calculations in my head and fail miserably. I think it is going to be ok, but it could also be all bad. Arrive interstate at 7:50am, collect bag by 8am, *insert feeling of mild panic – I’m still without a car and 50km from destination*. Pick up car eventually (“Oh, we don’t have any small cars right now….would you like a Lancer?…. no wait, you can have a Prius”) and hope my finger tapping and watch checking wasn’t too obvious. Finally get keys, then discover that I can’t leave until I have had an instruction session with a dreamy (as in off with the fairies, not McDreamy-dreamy) Irishman. Am mildly amused by the lack of key and giant power button. Finally leave the airport at 8:35am, pray for my GPS to HTFU and make friends with some satellites so I can get going (NFI where I am going, lol). Make it to my hotel at 9:10am to pick up keys, then on to the workshop location by 9:15am. Not such a bad effort.
Workshop itself was awesome, it was great to finally meet the people that have been doing my course. Also great to discuss cases with the tutor (a world reknowned specialist in her field). Also quite a lot of fun getting progressively drunk with her as the night went on – hey, I was keen on ‘participating’ 
. I found it quite reassuring to know that “fruit-loop” is considered an appropriate medical term, as is “nut-job”.
Came home yesterday, thankfully with no hiccups. Also got to experience the fun that is the plantinum business lounge at the airport. Noice. Very noice. Kudos to the specialist to sharing the love – we met again at the airport 
