I’m back!  And I have so much unloading/organizing to do… But just wanted to let everyone know I arrived safe and sound and will hopefully write a more informative update sometime soon.

When A.J. and I were in Australia, we spent about a week on a road trip.  We drove from Brisbane to Melbourne along the coast, which was fun and beautiful and a little adrenaline-inducing at times (like when I would sometimes turn onto the wrong side of the road…).  One of the coolest parts of the road trip was actually a bit of an add-on since we had to go out of our way to get there, and it was totally worth it: the Penguin Parade on Phillip Island.

As you can see, Phillip Island is pretty far south, and the Penguin Parade is on the very eastern-most part of the island.  And when you are there and you look out across the ocean, then is nothing between you and Antarctica.  How cool.

When we first arrived, we paid our admission and went to find a spot down on the beach.  See, these Little Penguins (aka "Fairy Penguins") head out into the ocean each day to hunt for food.  Each night at sunset they come up out of the ocean and waddle across the beach to their sand dune burrows.  So we gathered on the beach and waited with the rest of the tourists to watch this natural wildlife attraction. And waited.  And shivered a little.  And waited some more.  Then we heard some people exclaiming and pointing and we strained our eyes down the beach and could just make out some movements – nothing too spectacular.  But then we saw a group of penguins a little closer to us getting ready to come up out of the waves.  They like to cross the beach in groups because they have an natural instinct to fear being plucked up by birds of prey.  They float together in the water until they sense it is just the right moment, then they run (waddle) as fast as they can across the beach and into the sand dunes.  The very best part of the whole process is that they have a bit of a hard time getting out of the ocean, what with the waves and all, and so they often get knocked over or pulled back out in the undertow.  It’s entertaining and very cute, and eventually they get past it (so you don’t have to feel too sorry for them).  After a little bit of watching, we decided we’d had our experience and were ready to leave.

And that’s when the best part of the whole night began.  See, as you walk down to the beach from the visitor’s center, you walk on an elevated boardwalk (so as not to disrupt the natual habitat).  As we walked up the boardwalk back to the visitor’s center, we realized that many Little Penguins were walking alongside us – heading up to their burrows.  They were really close, and sometimes they would stand still and look at you, and sometimes they would waddle their way up the hill next to you.  They really were little, too – only about 33cm tall (so says the guidebook).  I was mesmerized.  Unfortunately, they don’t let you take pictures there… but here are some that I found:

Completely enthralling.  Almost as much as when I see baby koalas.  It really was a great part of our road trip and I am so so glad we went.

So look what arrived in the mail today!!  My Killer Bunnies Starter Deck (as well as a few Booster Decks)!  A.J. and I were introduced to this game while we were in Australia and pretty much got hooked.  So if you live anywhere near us right now, expect to be taught the game so we will have more people to play with.  🙂  It is very fun, totally entertaining, and relies fairly equally on luck and strategy.  I have been spending quite a bit of time on their website lately (www.killerbunnies.com) reading up on some of the more intricate rules of play.  I think A.J. and I are going to try a 2-person game tonight.

Oh, and I have the Green, Twlilight White, and Stainless Steel Booster Decks on the way.  Now to obtain the Omega Cards…

On December 28th, A.J. and I set out for our holiday in Australia.  We were looking forward to a couple of weeks in the sunny weather, enjoying beaches, iced frappes from The Coffee Club, and wearing shorts.  My parents dropped us at SeaTac airport nearly three hours before our flight since we wanted to have time to work out checking-in for our international flight as well as checking our bags all the way through to Brisbane.  We were starting out on Alaska Airlines with a flight to Las Vegas then on to LAX (on American) where we would then hop on our Qantas flight to Brisbane via Auckland, New Zealand.  Things seemed to be going well, the nice Alaska Airlines check-in girl helped get our itinerary all consolidated and successfully had our bags tagged all the way to Brisbane.  She was not able to give us boarding passes for anything but the first flight though, citing that the different airlines (American and Qantas) would have to print those off for us, which we thought was unusual, but would be just fine.

We then went through security without any troubles and, since we were so early, we wandered around the fairly new Pacific Marketplace area.  We found some interesting items in the Fireworks store (I really love that store).  Lunch was definitely in order, and we had time for a nice sit down meal at the Anthony’s Restaurant there at the airport.  I had a crab and shrimp stuffed cod that initially came out undercooked but was promptly corrected (and taken off the bill!).

After lunch we headed out to our gate to await boarding… and we waited… and waited… our flight was delayed.  And delayed a little more.  And once we finally got all boarded and in the air, it was pretty clear that we wouldn’t be making our connecting flight to LA.  It turns out there were 13 people on our flight in the same boat as us (that’s kind of a funny travelling mixed metaphor… :)) and the flight attendants were trying their best to find out what the plan would be.  As we descended into Las Vegas, they announced our situation to the whole plane and asked that everyone stay seated so we could get off and (hopefully) make our connection.  We were advised to RUN to gate D2 and cross our fingers… so we all ran to where D2 should have been… only to find gate D2 doesn’t exist.  It just wasn’t there.  Completely missing.  So we wasted some precious seconds finding a readout of departures, discovered we were meant to be at D8, and made our way there as quickly as possible.  We were met by a bitter American Airlines employee who was already shaking her head at us before we even approached the gate.  The plane was still there, the jetway still attached, but this woman said that if they let us get on, then the flight would be late and they just couldn’t have that.  Well, I think for 13 passengers the flight could have been 10 minutes late and nobody really would have even noticed.  But no.

So we were all sent back to the gate we had landed at to take up our beef with Alaska as to how we would get to LA.  There was a very harried man at the gate rushing to get us new boarding passes for a replacement flight, which he announced would be taking off sometime around 9pm-ish – unfortunate since our Qantas flight was scheduled for 8:30pm.  We explained the situation to the Alaska representative, and he quickly worked to get us seats on an earlier flight that would have us in LA in time to make our connection.  He handed us what he said were our boarding passes and sent us off to the B Gates.  What he did not tell us was that we would have to leave security and then go back through (since the gates were not connected).  He also did not mention that the cards he had given us were not actually boarding passes, but really were ticket vouchers for the America West Flight he had (supposedly) booked us on.  Needless to say, the security people wouldn’t let us through (no boarding passes…) and sent us to the America West ticket counter.  The lady there told us that the vouchers we were holding were not valid since they hadn’t been "stamped" or whatever.  She said we’d have to go BACK to Alaska to get them properly stamped, oh and by the way we weren’t actually booked on the flight either!  Time was getting short to make the flight at this point.  A.J. ran down to Alaska’s ticketing counter (at the other end of the airport!) and got the proper paperwork and had them book us on the flight.  He brought the papers back to America West (who said we STILL weren’t actually booked on the flight, but then she took care of it for us).  She printed us off boarding passes – of course with middle seats 3 rows apart from each other – and we headed to security.  Wouldn’t you know that we’d get randomly chosen to have EXTRA security checks at that point. 🙂  Then down to the gate, where the plane actually boarded on time, but then ended up leaving late anyway.

We landed in LA with a little time to spare, and all would have been great, except that when we got to our gate the jetway wasn’t working and we sat there in the plane for 10-15 minutes while the problem was worked out.  There is no "secured" way to get from where we landed to the International Terminal, so we had to leave security (again) and find our way over there.  We were told the shuttle would be the fastest way, but we had to wait 5-10 minutes for it, and ultimately I think we could have walked there faster.  We ran up to the Qantas counter and went through the much shorter business class line (since A.J. has AA Platinum status – it’s so great to travel with him!) but we still didn’t make it in time to get our boarding passes.  See, if we had been given our boarding passes in Seattle, all would have been fine… but since we didn’t have them and we showed up about 1 minute past the deadline for checking in, we were told that we had missed the flight.  And thta’s all we were told.  No helpful offer to put us on the next available flight, no direction as to what we should do now.  Just  a curt "You missed it" from supervisor Tamara.  We pressed for information and the agent told us to take it up with Alaska, since they were the ones that made us late.  This didn’t seem quite right, but the Qantas staff were busy and very short with us (I must point out, they were Americans, not Australians) so we headed over a terminal to see what Alaska could do for us.

When we got there, the customer service desk was empty and there didn’t seem to be anyone around who could help us.  A few minutes later, an Alaska representative emerged from the back room and we explained the situation.  She got on the phone and had us booked (quite efficiently) on the next available flight to Brisbane, which happened to be direct and would even get us there a few minutes before our previously scheduled flight.  Again, no boarding passes could be printed there, so it was back to Qantas.  This time we got a much nicer representative, who printed our passes and directed us to the Qantas Club where we could relax for the next few hours until our flight.  Unfortunately, since we were rebooked on this flight, we didn’t get our requested seats (in the very back of the plane), nor did we get seats together… again 2 middle seats, this time about 20 rows apart.  We were told the plane was overbooked by about 30 people, but that we could continue to check for availability of seats together up until boarding time.

We set off for the Qantas Club and settled in with the complimentary munchies and beverages.  There was a dedicated representative manning the front desk, and we checked in with her every so often about seat availability (there was none) and the status of our checked bags (supposedly "on the plane" and waiting for us).  Boarding time came, so we headed out to the gate.  As a last ditch effort, I asked the gate agent if there was any chance that we could have seats together, and she replied "Yes, but they’re in the middle."  Well, that’s fine – we were already in middle seats apart, so we might as well step up to middle seats together.  She printed off new boarding passes (Row 29) and we headed for the plane.

Once we got on we breezed past business class then started looking for our seats… there’s row 35, oh wait… that’s too far, back up a bit (sorry people behind us)… wait, this section only goes down to row 32, then it’s business class.  Wait a minute.  Check the boarding pass: Row 29.  Check the row numbers: Row 29 is in business class.  Ask the flight attendant if we’re in the right place.  Yep – seems with the overbooking they sold these seats as economy for our flight.  Score!  We got the special Skybeds and personal video screens.  I was checking out all the bells and whistles when the announcement came that they flight would be a bit delayed since there were some checked bags on the plane that apparently didn’t belong there, and so had to be taken off.  Whatever, I’m thinking, delay all you want now – I’m in Business Class! 🙂

It was a nice flight – watched some movies, had some meals and snacks, slept a fair bit in the fully reclining skybed seat – and arrived refershed into Brisbane on Friday morning December 30th around 8am.  We cleared immigration and then waited for our checked bags to come around on the conveyor.  And we waited.  And waited some more.  And I checked the conveyor for the flight we were originally scheduled on, just in case our bags were still routed that way. And we kept waiting.  And then the bags stopped coming. 

Conversation with the Qantas baggage representative led to us filing 4 missing bag claims with descriptions like "It’s a big purple suitcase with a lot of cinnamon candies inside" and  "The big black one has a really expensive camera" and "The duffle bag has a big green stuffed cucumber in it."  Very interesting job, to take descriptions of the things people travel with. 🙂  We were assured that Qantas would let us know as soon as they had more information, and they had hopes that our bags would be returned the next day (delivered to the house of course).  And then she gave us $100AUD each to purchase necessities in the interim.

Needless to say, we cleared customs fairly quickly – what with no bags and all – and finally met up with Karen in the lobby… who was just happy that we had made it and had been starting to wonder just how long one waits outside of immigration for a visitor and what one should do in the event the visitor doesn’t show.  We drove straight to the nearest shopping center and bought some clothes to last us until our luggage was returned.  Which, by the way, was later the next afternoon.

All in all, I’m tempted to blame our baggage problems on Alaska Airlines (since they made us late in the first place and they’ve been having a heck of a time with baggage issues lately anyway).  They also lost one of our bags on our trip back to Seattle – not to mention one of my bags during my interview trip to San Jose.  And then there’s the lady whose show dogs were tossed around (which she observed from the plane and immediately demanded to get off and get her dogs out of the plane) and the numerous incidents of baggage carts "bumping" planes and doors being unlatched causing cabin pressure losses and emergency landings.  Maybe I’ll stick with Qantas.  I like where they fly better anyways. 🙂