Queensland

mmmm, nice.

But before we get there - the journey. It was my first time in Graham's new airoplane. It's identical to his old one, same model and same internals and externals, except it's built in a later year. For all I could tell, it was the same thing with a new paint job ... Anyway, we packed everything in, which was a big effort, having in mind there were presents and of course my computer. The early hour didn't help either. It's not easy for anyone to operate before 9ish ... we were at the airport at 6am. Enough said on that - I don't want to remember it.

Then, there was the flight. We had a stop in the middle for a refill. The flight in total takes about 6 hours. We were lucky for the first part as we had very strong tail wind and were travelling about a quarter faster than usual so the first leg of the trip took 2:20 instead of 3 hours. There was something to be desired for the second part though. I slept for about 5 of the six hours of the flight, but the last half hour was particularly bad. There were lots of air bubbles, cross winds and all kinds of other nasties to keep you on your toes, including one sudden drop of about 20m freefall through an air bubble, which send us flying, held only by the seatbelts and the luggage landed straight on the roof of the plane. Quite an experience actually - best rollercoaster I've ever been in. Although this experience is far from turning me off from flying, it will remain as a tale of caution of what could go wrong. I'm really glad the flight didn't go on for 5 more minutes, because I cannot begin to imagine what my awakened internal decorator would have done with the place, adding unique colours and smells to the place. You get the idea. The good thing is that I did survive, without loosing my dignity and I was as good as new 5 minutes after we hit solid ground.

If you haven't been to Queensland, one thing that hits you (besides the hot wave of humid air) is how alive it is. There are millions of expressions of life. For the time it took to unload and get the car (20 mins or so), there were different creatures on 4 of the bags. Quite an effort if you ask me. Don't even get me started on how I'm typing this with a monitor, that's covered with little flying thingies of all sorts.

The drive from the airport was somewhat of a nightmare as well. Nothing special as far as nightmares go - just very, very hot. Swimming is usually not a bad thing, unless it's in your own bodily fluids. I guess I had one of the less offencive ones .. just ordinary sweat, but still.

Fortunately, things just got better from there. Lounging around generally wasting time and place and swimming were the majority of the occupational hazards. Nice hotel, beautiful view, apparently the biggest public swimming pool in the southern hemisphere, nice weather ... what else could I ask for?

me tired. Christmass tomorrow. Merry christmass everyone. me goes to bed before it turns into a pumpkin for being on this post on christmass