Made it to Newfoundland!!!

Well what a start to the hols…. Scotty rang Glenda just past 10am on Wednesday to see if she was alright or just delayed, the conversation went along the lines of, “Are you alright?” “Yes, of course I am why are you ringing today at work?” “Aren’t you picking us up to drive to Sydney?”

And that was the start of 30 hours of hilarity, missteps and mix ups. As we had planned to drive to Sydney on Wednesday for our Thursday morning flight, being delayed out of Bathurst on Wednesday morning was not a big deal.

Scott and I had a great afternoon relaxing in Sydney and had a less than fantastic feed at the hotel pub- the beer and champers more than made up for that, though.

Thursday morning arrives and I am awake at 1:16am and Scott wakes at 3:21am….. I think we were a bit excited and found ourselves in a saddened state of wakefulness. The last thing that I wanted before embarking on over 30 hours of flying was to not sleep the night before.

As I sit on the Air Canada flight fighting to stay awake for the landing into St. John’s, having a restless night on Wednesday night was the last thing we needed!

We arrived to Sydney International Airport at 6am and found ourselves in amongst hundreds of pilgrims also about to depart for Canada from their World Youth Day celebrations around Sydney Harbour. There was a lot of singing!

We queued up at the Air Canada counter and the wonderful QANTAS flight attendants opened up an hour later. We checked ourselves through to Ottawa (via Vancouver) and did a bit of duty free shopping followed by a soggy breakfast.

As most of you are aware, I became a citizen of Australia in 2007. I was a permanent resident for 2 years prior to that. When my passport was coming up for renewal, I just sent in a renewal application and received a brand new one in the mail from the Canadian Consulate.

I noticed when I received it that it did not have my permanent resident label stuck in and thought, hmmm, maybe I should take my voided passport with my in case….. but didn’t. I knew that when my passport was scanned that everything would be okay, even though my country of citizenship said “Canada”…… I wasn’t too concerned, at least not concerned enough to do anything about it.

After we checked our luggage through with the Pilgrims, we made our way to Immigration.

We were met with the dreaded words, “Ma’am, would you mind stepping this way, please?”

I bet you could hear the *snap, snap* of rubber gloves as well….

As it turns out, because my new passport did no have my residency label (because I am a citizen I didn’t think I needed a permanent resident visa in my passport) and I was travelling on my Canadian passport, they just thought they would check things out.

This kind Immigration Officer was very patient and as soon as she entered my name in her computer she could see that I was in fact a Citizen of Australia and she explained that when I received my renewed passport, my permanent residency does not automatically transfer to the new passport. She recommends that I get myself my Australian Passport when we get back and to inform the Immigration dude we will speak with in Toronto on the way home that they need to ring Canberra to admit me through….. nice.

I did not get an Australian Passport because I would get it in Quill when my Canadian one (in Janes) expires. I thought it best not to travel on two different passports from 2 different countries under different names….. call me silly.

The flight from Sydney to Vancouver was about 18 hours and was relatively uneventful. Scott and I were squished in with a lady from Sydney now living at Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. And hold onto your britches- she knew my mum’s cousin John and Margaret living in White Rocks…… talk about small world.

Scott and I passed the time pretty much by movies and music and I read an enlightening Business Case which is going to Treasury from DADHC. Scott and I watched Horton Hears and Who and 21 and the Bank Job. I took a 2 or 3 hour break after each movie before watching another. My seat mate, June, the friend of cousin John and Margaret was unable to work her audio system for her in-seat entertainment device. I can not imagine 18 hours on the plane without a movie and so after I watched one, I tuned my little in seat movie to hers and let her listen on my headset to her movie whilst I poured over Economic Analysis and Social Impact Statements for my business case.

Our arrival in Vancouver was going to be a tight turn around, which we knew beforehand, we just did not know HOW tight that was going to be!!!!! Air Canada held the flight to Ottawa for us who ran through 18km of Vancouver terminal to get to our connecting flight. I still don’t know if our luggage has made it!!

We arrive on the Van-Ottawa flight sweaty, out of breath and to the good humour of all on board, thankfully.

We had a great stop in Ottawa and met with my cousin Dave and his wife Gloria and their son Kendrick. Well, there is no surprise I am sure in telling you how Scotty hit it off with Kendrick…. We had a fantastic meal and a real good catch up at the airport before setting off once again.

This is where things got hairy once more.

We walk down the security queue and take the laptop out of the bag and get ready to go through when we look at each other and Scott says, “Have we checked in?”

We leave the queue and head back downstairs and at the opening of the Air Canada queue there is a visitor information agent or whatever the hell Air Canada call their people and he said we were right to head to security.

We had our Van-Ottawa boarding passes still in our passport due to the super fast fly through in Van. So, we think, right, our flight is 6:30pm it is 5:55pm we should head through security…. Hmmm, the security dude asks for my boarding pass, which we hand over and he looks at the pass and looks at us and I swear, a full 10 beats passes before he looks up and says, “These are not your boarding passes.”

We hoof it out of security down to the check in counter again, and get ourselves checked in, back to security and to our gate. Little did we know we had heaps of time and could actually catch our breath.

We got safely onto the plane and I sat in the exit row with heaps of room whilst Scotty was crammed in the back of the bus, hehe.

We arrived to St. John’s airport to find mum and dad (thankfully with jackets for us for the cold) and then Aunt Juice and Uncle Brudy and Rose arrived about 6 minutes later than us!

2 out of 3 bags arrived on our plane (due, I guess to the delay in Vancouver) and my luggage arrived on Friday when we were at the cabin.

We are on our way to George St Festival now, so I had better do a runner…..