Friends with Benefits….

What else can you say??

Look close and you can see the stinger nets in the beach picture.

is really coming down. Blah! Pretty hard to go from 88 degree sunny wonderful weather to this in a matter of a day! But it is Iowa in April.

I was going to do one last Australian blog yesterday but I succumbed to the couch in the afternoon. I think the flight from Sydney to LA did me in. I couldn’t sleep on it–there were tons of kids on the flight and they were up and down the aisles all night so I just couldn’t settle in. Then I got cold and I couldn’t reach the air thingy without waking Chris up so I stayed cold even though I had a blanket!

Some thoughts on some things that I didn’t comment on. ….

Australians are pretty cool people. They really do say “no worries” all the time but it seems natural and not fake at all. From the waiters to the hotel staff to the German lady in the souvenir shop–they all say it, all the time.

True Aussies may not have a great opinion of Americans. They think we are loud and brash–imagine that! We met a couple from Melbourne in the souvenir shop we were in and they struck up a conversation with us. Chris says it is my gift that people talk to me and just tell me everything right off the bat. Oh if I could only make money doing that!!! This couple had a daughter going to school in Canada and they were on holiday in Townsville over Easter and had a lot to say. They were shopping for somethng for their teenage son and she pulled a jar of Vegamite off the shelf and told me that I needed to take that with me. I told her that I had tried it and just couldn’t like it. She looked at me with all seriousness and said “learn to like it”. And that was that!

International travel is not always easy or smooth…..probably the worst airport was LA. After deplaning we had to walk miles (or so it seemed to Chris’ blistered feet) to get through customs. Seriously—it was a long way. Through a construction site and finally we got there. Customs is not a huge deal but what is a huge deal is going through all the million of security checkpoints! Every place is different and the overseas ones don’t seem to be as concerned about the liquids and stuff as the ones in US (obviously) but still you have to go through several places where they scan you and your luggage and all that rigamarole. I had it down to a science and when we went through at LA the people around me just could not get it through their heads that they had to take their laptops out and put them ALONE in a bin to send them through. The guy at the Xray machine kept saying “look at this lady–she has it right” so I was the poster child!!! I must say that the folks in LA were nice—-I have found that if you just are nice to them and engage them in conversation they USUALLY respond positively. Usually.

Flight attendants on Northwest airlines are not nearly as nice as the ones on Qantas. The ones on Qantas were extremely nice and helpful—always there if you needed them but not hovering and obnoxious. My experience lately with NW flight attendants has been less than stellar—they don’t have the time of day and in several cases are downright rude to customers.

Stay away from scary passengers….on the way from LA to Minneapolis the lady next to me had some “issues”. First of all she wanted 4 bottles of wine which the flight attendant would not give her. Ended up having 3……and drank them all. Now granted they are the baby bottles but still it is not that long of a flight. She rustled around the entire flight flipping magazine pages on me (Chris was at the window and I was the middle seat) and then she got out this sheepskin thingy and stroked and fingered it the entire time. Can you say FREAKY??? Well I am not sure if she had a fear of flying or what but I was glad to leave her behind!!!

Chris was amazed at all the stuff that Lorrae talked to me about–things that her husband would probably not have appreciated her telling me. Like I said, I have a gift.

*Another discovery is that dirty laundry does indeed weigh more than clean clothes….suitcases mysteriously weigh more coming home than they did going. Why is that? And I had Chris pack most of the souvenirs in his bag. MY bag always had the HEAVY tags on it!!! His didn’t! Why is that???? Not fair.

I guess that is all I can think of at this moment. I think we have a lot of praying to do about this…..you all could pray with us!!! That would be GREAT!!!!