Normally when I start my blogs, I try to start them from the day I leave, well... I'm going to jump back a little to Wednesday when I finished up at the office. After saying my farewells to those staff that will have finished up at Fairfax by the time I get back (about 5 or so people) I made my way to the elevator to find a farewell committee waiting for me, or was it a celebration committee, I'm not really sure, gathered on each side of the elevator were a number of the local staff blowing bubbles in the air as I made my way to the elevator door. Upon reaching the door we realised the down button had to to be pressed, after one of the kind ladies pressed the down button, I mentioned that after all that, wouldn't it be funny if it wasn't even that elevator that opened... Sure enough... It ended up being the other elevator. It was a quick jump over to the other door before, the door closed and some more farewell bubbles were blown my was by Sharon, Cath and Sarah as the elevator door closed for the last time for two months for me. From there it was back home to begin the next few days of working at home packing the house. Today I thought I would get a rather easy day compared to the last 3 or 4 days I've had. The past few days were very busy with helping clear out a bunch of rubbish from the house and packing all my belongings into boxes. About a week after my trip got booked, the insurance finally decided to give the go ahead for our long waited earthquake repairs while I'm away. While this is great timing in some ways with me not being there, it did add to the stress of only having two weeks to get things sorted around the house, such as getting shutoff and clearing out my room. It may seem like plenty of time for some, but I do have a fairly busy social life most days along with a lot of running training envy other day. I finished all my packing and clearing out last yesterday, thinking to myself "Great, I'll have a stress free day tomorrow (today) before having to head to the airport. Unfortunately I woke this morning to a pain in my foot I have had before. I knew if I didn't get on top of this now, it's only going to get worse. Therefore, instead of just taking my time this morning, I had to start with a rushed morning, dropping off some clothes at the house where I'm staying when I get back, along with grabbing some Diclofenac Sodium Tablets from my bag which I left in my gym bag. With only 10 of those left, it was a rush down to then 24 hour clinic to try and get another prescription so I would have enough to last me my trip should my foot get any worse. A quick drive home, a top up of the cat food and last minute check to make sure I had everything and then I was in the car driving myself to the airport. Now people may be thinking, what.. Your leaving your car at the airport while your away, well... Not exactly, I drove Mums car to the airport where I have left it for her and Dad to get when they get back from Nelson on Monday. It works out well considering, I got to the airport on time, and they don't have to pay $70 for a taxi home. It'll be five months now before I see my parents, as they will be taking off overseas for a few months about a month before I get back. Kind of makes the 32 hours of travel time for today seem like it's going to be rather short. The flight from NZ to Aussie started off with a quick nap from almost the moment I sat down, although my flight is with "Etihad Airways" it appears that the flight from NZ to Aussie has been put on by Virgin Australia, while its not that bad, it does mean that any on flight entertainment requires an app for your iPhone or iPad, wish I had known that before I fell asleep, I'll need to remember to download that required app in Melbourne airport. It wasn't that big a deal as I have my wireless hard drive with me which I was able to use to watch some shows which I had stored on it for cases like this. I had expected that the first time I would use it was actually in the airport in Aussie, I guess it's just a few hours I'll get back elsewhere on the trip. I did get a little stuck at first trying to get onto the drive, miss been over a year since I last connected to it wirelessly, so needless to say, I couldn't remember the wifi for password for it... After waking up on the plane I spent the next 10 minutes resetting the Wireless drive back to defaults and going through the reconfiguration of it so others on the plane couldn't watch the TV shows or movies on my drive. I would have liked to have spent a bit more time checking out the view from my window seat, however there wasn't anything to look at out the window apart from a wing and some clouds, if that changes then I'll be sure to check out the view, hopefully safely from my seat and not screaming that the wing has gone.