Day 28: 28/1/13
I didn't sleep much last night. I went to bed at 11 so I was only going to have four hours sleep at the most, but I woke up a few times thinking it was time to get up. Niamh came in during the night too and I was talking to her for a few minutes. She told me to wake her when I was going but I attempted to and she just grunted at me so I thought I better leave her be!
My flight was at 6:25 but I got to the airport around 4, to be on the safe side! I like to be early, especially when it's international. There was a flight to Brisbane with Air New Zealand that was cancelled so I was afraid mine would be too because of flooding in Queensland but thankfully it was fine. I watched a cartoon film Brave on the flight and then slept a bit.
The flight landed at 6:30, a half hour earlier than expected. I went through security no bother and went to the baggage carousel. Our flight seemed to be the only people around but there were loads of bags on the carousel that noone seemed to own. We spent a half hour looking at these bags going around and no people to take them! It turns out they belonged to a flight from Dallas but I don't know where the people were. They were having difficulties attaching the bridge to the planes with the weather, so they must have been held up with that. After about a half hour the Dallas people started arriving but there were still too many bags on the carousel to put ours on. After another 10minutes they moved our bags to a different carousel and we spent 10 minutes looking at that one not moving at all! Eventually after an hour of waiting around I got my bag. At this stage the queue for customs was really long with all the people from Dallas and other places. I had ticked yes to walking on a farm as I had been in New Zealand but a man just asked if my shoes were dirty and when I said no he said go home so!!
When I got out into arrivals Mike wasn't there. So I headed to the carpark as that's where I said I'd meet him if I couldn't see him. But because I was in international I was at a different car park to the one he dropped me off in so I didn't know where to go. I asked where the other car park was but you had to get a shuttle bus there and I knew that he knew I wa international so he would be here somewhere. Of course not having a phone is a huge problem!! There was wifi in the airport but it wouldn't work. I found a pay phone then and had awful work trying to figure out how to use it!! It wouldn't connect though for some reason. I went to the bathroom then and afterwards thought I'd try ringing again before maybe finding a computer. I found a different pay phone and this one worked and he was able to pick me up in a few minutes right outside the door.
He knew the flight had landed at half six and it was half eight at this stage because of the delay with the bags. He thought that I had either missed my flight or that I had gotten a taxi or something. He had driven around everywhere and walked around the phones, computers, taxi queues, etc and was just about to go home when I rang! I'm very lucky as most people would have gone home long before that!!
I had a few things I needed to do today. Firstly, I had all my clothes to wash and some clothes to swap for others in the bag. So I took over Mikes washer and dryer! I also wanted to write the letter saying I was coming back to school in September. It doesn't have to be in until the first of March but I won't be back until the 10th of February. I wrote it but then realised it was a bank holiday and the post office won't be open so Ill just have to post it as soon as I get back. I'll send an email then anyway just incase there's any confusion.
The most important thing I had to do today was go to the apple store. I had an appointment in the one nearest Mikes so Mike and Sean came with me and we grabbed some lunch there too. They brought it out the back again and fixed it no bother. It was set to accept temporary Australian services because of my Irish sim or something and they don't know why it reset when I downloaded the upgrade. They didn't think it would happen again anyway but if it did they can fix it. So, I had a working phone again- free of charge I might add!! It isn't a big deal here anyway as I have an Australian phone, but still it's nice to have it working!
I spent the afternoon saving photos on m computer and started picking ones for Facebook but I gave up after a while as I just got too tired!
I watched some tv with the lads for a while and had the dinner handed to me by Sean again- it's a great house!! Sean also had lots of photos from his trip to Dubaii that I was looking at. I really want to go there now too!!
Before going to bed I repacked the bag again with the clean clothes. I should have ironed some of them but I just could not be bothered! I looked over the emails and printouts I had to check for the times of flights and things and suddenly realised that the voucher I had for the trip I'm doing had the wrong dates on it. I had sent them emails back and over about the trip which had all the right dates on it and I booked it over the phone. After a few days the confirmation email hadnt come through so I emailed them again and they sent it on. I just checked that it was there and didn't look too closely at it. They had the right date but the wrong month down- they had December instead of January which would have meant that I had missed the trip! That was great news to see at half eight in the evening on a bank holiday Monday when you are flying at 7 the next morning!! I thought it was just an error and then I read the fine print that I was supposed to confirm the trip within 48hrs of departure and I hadn't done that either! I was so annoyed with myself that I hadn't read the voucher properly. I know I booked it right but I should have still checked the voucher.
I emailed them straight away, knowing that I wouldn't get an answer but I thought if I needed to be rebooked or something they could be working on it. Then I saw a phone number and thought I'd chance ringing it incase they were open 24 hours. A woman answered but sounded like she was in bed! She definitely wasn't in an office and she had no access to the data about my trip. She was nice though and I explained how I was flying first thing in the morning and I wouldn't know for sure before I left. She said she'd check as soon as she got to work in the morning but for me to ring at my Stopover in Cairns just incase.
As you can imagine, going to sleep after that was a lot of fun! My angels had a bit of a taking to!! I decided that if I wasn't booked there would have to be some kind of day trip or something I could do in Alice Springs anyway and I'd make my own way to Adelaide and Melbourne if I had to. The only thing is that I would lose 1095 dollars as it was my own fault for not checking the voucher properly!!