I'M IN AUSTRALIA!!!

On the flight from Auckland to Sydney, I had a brief chat with the guy sitting next to me. I noticed on his seat monitor in front of him he was listening to Mika – like if Queen, Prince, and Madonna had a three-way, and Mika is the baby Eddy Mercury birthed from the spliced seed of Madonna and Prince – I asked him if he had listened through to the bonus track on Life in Cartoon Motion, a favorite track of Bryan and I from our Denton days together, a beautiful haunting song on piano with dark and ominous tones, sorrowful and reverent vocals full of suspensions – he said he hadn't. I followed up by suggesting, if he liked Mika, that he would probably like the Bird and the Bee, their album, Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future, is also on the Quantas airline's music library. He works for Quantas as a(n) _______ - can't remember, but it sounded boring and corporate-y and like he was much too young to be doing that sort of work, in my opinion.

We landed and disembarked – “I'M IN AUSTRALIA!” I exclaimed to myself, and later out loud when there were fewer people to think I was another deranged tourist. I went through the passport check, and went to the baggage claim, the one worry I had, it was killing me: did my beloved bicycle make it all the way???! To my surprise, all my bags made it to the carousel. SO relieved, I balanced my three beastly bags on a trolley, and once again, thanks to my first class tickets, I was placed in the express line through customs. At the Aussie customs, my passport was stamped, but no visa requirement checked, and my bike was inspected for half a second, just to make sure I wasn't bringing in foreign terrain. Luckily, I had just bought the ultra slick, super narrow, extra thick hipster tires for Yoshimi, my steed, which makes her impervious to the mud-bots and dirt-droids.

But I digress. Having made it successfully and without hassle through the Australian customs, there was one thing haunting me, was my mother on the next flight over to beat me for not calling her the instant I deplaned?! I immediately went and exchanged my greenbacks for Australian currency and a phone card, as my iPhone was from that point forward, simply a mini-computer. I rang my mother up just before she boarded the Midnight Mommy Express direct flight from Austin to Sydney, let her know I had arrived safe with all my luggage yata-yata. She was happy she could still get a refund for her express ticket and that I was safe and sound, but being that it was nigh on midnight in Austin, and she being a working woman, she was ready to turn in; and I was ready to find a taxi to take me to my one known contact in Sydney, Simon, who was at work, however, his mother had broken her ankle a week before and was home bound and around to meet me at their home in Rose Bay when I arrived...Great?! I went outside the airport with my trolley to look for a cab, and that's a whole other story....

TTFN