What Am I Doing Up This Early?

Here I sit at the Melbourne Airport, awaiting my first flight. This one will take me from Melbourne into Hong Kong and takes just about 10 hours. My sister was surprised that it would take that long, but when you think about it, Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere and China is in the northern hemisphere.  Beijing is in northern China, near Mongolia, so quite a ways away. It will be my first time flying south to north for such a distance. I've only ever flown east to west for great distances. 

In order to be here 3 hours prior to my flight as required, I had to be picked up by taxi at 4:00am. I have to say, the cabbie was right on time. I had no sooner arrived at the curb and he was pulling up - perfect timing. He then collected my details to be sure to pick me up when I return. As I was checking out my return details, I discovered a little issue - I knew I was flying back on Sunday 14th, but what I didn't know is I don't actually arrive back in Melbourne until 1:00pm on Monday 15th...oops! I had to send a quick text to my manager then to let him know not to expect me until Tuesday. I just hope I had nothing scheduled in for work...That's two little issues now. I also messed up a little on the departure date for my daughter and I. We are both leaving on the 29th, but she is leaving from Canada and crossing back over the date line, so doesn't actually arrive in Beijing until the 30th. Ooops...so I had to book a second night at the airport hotel so I can meet her at the airport easily. Not a big deal - I can certainly use the down time and possibly get orientated, pick up train passes, etc. I could also just sleep through in my own bed all day...after all, the next 15 days I'll be sharing my room with another person - my daughter. The last time we group slept was in San Francisco with 3 of my friends. We had two double beds and a single fold-away bed, all in the same room. Since my daughter had never met any of my friends, I had her sleep in the fold away and I shared with my soul sister, A. Not that we spent much time sleeping...after all, we were there for a music festival and it's bloody San Francisco!!!

I'm hoping we are both well enough by Saturday that there are no coughing or snorting issues. I became sick about 2 weeks ago after lending my phone to a youth I was working with and just didn't think to clean it off when I got it back...within a couple of days I was sick, as was his entire family. Then my daughter came down with a cold a few days ago, so she's been pounding back the orange juice, water, and just trying to rest as much as one can when preparing for an overseas trip. I struggled with it as I was so damn busy at work, I worked late every night this week and last week, some nights quite late, and I've been in by an hour or more early, just to get as much done as I could before I left. There was of course, a last minute crisis so I didn't get to leave on time today either, but my lovely team manager was happy to organize another worker to finish up the crisis job and I could get the hell out of the office before anything else happened. I still had to get Dundee's things together and take him over to the cat sitter, so finally left work at about 6:30pm. I packed up the kid; he meowed the entire way from Footscray to Fitzroy, but by the time I flung him in the door at the cat sitter's he had calmed some and was very interested in the house - there is a female kitty there. He didn't get to meet her as she was sleeping in a room with one of my friend's housemates, but I think it was more than enough that he could smell her everywhere and get used to her that way. There is potential for Dundee to move in when I head back to Canada next year, provided his vacation goes well and they don't try to kill one another! 

So here I sit at 5:55am in the Melbourne Airport. My flight to China leaves in less than two hours. I must go find a comfy seat and read for awhile. I've had some Hungry Jacks for breakfast, as I just couldn't wait until the flight gets in the air and they begin breakfast service - that's about 3 hours from now. I'll be ready for another breakfast by then!