Screaming Heap

My boys favourite photo from my trip!

I'm back.....very sick...and minus ALL my luggage. Yep, have landed home in a 'screaming heap'!

My trip home from LA was horrendous! After a great flight with Virgin America, from New York to LA, in which the 6 hours just flew by due to my delight with their on-board Wi Fi (skyped, tweeted, blogged my little heart out at 35,000 feet!)....my 4 hour wait until midnight, for my Virgin Australia flight from LA to Brisbane, ended in vain...with the flight being cancelled right at the death knell. Passengers were screaming and abusing the staff at the service desk as no-one at Virgin seemed capable of taking the lead and notifying panicked passengers as to what was going on. The queue for the service desk did not move for a good 2 hours and when I finally got to the head of the queue I think the woman, so out of her depth with the situation, was so grateful that I didn't scream at her that she just took one look at my premium economy ticket, hurriedly printed out a new boarding pass and "said run to gate 38 and you'll get on the flight for Sydney closing right now".

I ran! There was no way I was taking the festy overnight hotel option, with a $50 food voucher and one telephone call allowance, if I could help it. I did think as I was running though, "say bye-bye to your luggage A-M".

Yep. Nothing this end. And to make things worse, I have no luggage receipt tags as the panicked, out of her depth, LA Virgin airline service desk lady ripped them up with my old boarding pass when she issued me with a new LA to Sydney one. Sydney was a debacle too as Virgin Australia struggled to accommodate so many displaced Brisbanites, all missing their luggage, needing a flight home as soon as possible. After a long wait in Sydney, I finally got on to a flight to Brisbane, full of whinging passengers that the cabin crew attempted to placate with free food and drink. I just nursed my sick self in a corner, desperate to just get home.

I greeted my darling boys (little one was 'face plant' plastered to the glass at the airport - I saw him immediately as we taxied in) totally empty handed .....having to retract my promise, of gift giving in the back seat on the way home from the airport, due to the absence of my luggage. They understood and I think I worried them a bit when they finally greeted their dishevelled mum......as I am so crook! My health deteriorated markedly on the long flight home and I am now a coughing, sniffing, shaking, feverish mess! My niggling sore throat, on my last joyous bike riding day in New York, has unleashed a spectacular Northern Hemisphere bug that has seriously achieved the 'coming back down to earth after a fabulous journey' goal!

Crook, crook, crook...and jet lagged (hence the 2am post)....and starving coz it's lunchtime in New York..and so grateful to be home safe...and so 'complete' after the most amazing soul/sole (both) journey I have ever had in my life.

I'm back and not the same person I was 3 weeks ago.

And it's such a good thing.

A-M xx

PS My little one has held my hand since I got home. I had to prise him off me to go to bed.

 

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