LIFE UNLEASHED

After nearly a year of travel we were bound to have a few flight/airport stories. But really, who wants to listen to us winge? I guess our poor blog readers will Let the winging begin…

It all started out well on our flight from Toronto to LA. Lisa even convinced ground staff to let us into the American Airlines lounge in LA for free food & internet. If you give them a big enough sob story you can get into any airport lounge in the world (remember she learned a lot about getting what you want using the best story in India!).

An hour later we boarded the new Qantas double decker A380 aircraft bound for Melbourne, Australia. Four hours later we were still taxiing around the runway while Qantas said they were working on a problem with the main landing gear that would not allow it to be retracted once airborne. Shortly after that they pulled in to a gate to allow “engineers” on board to fix the problem. To our dismay these engineers carried guns and LAPD badges and removed 3 passengers. Another hour later waiting for the “landing gear” problem to be fixed while they unloaded the prisoner baggage and we were finally off. No problem they said, we would make up a couple hours in the air plus we had a few extra hours in Melbourne to catch our flight to Perth. About an hour before landing they said “Ummmm, we have another problem.  Melbourne won’t let us land because of strong winds so we are being redirected to Sydney but don’t worry we’ll put you on connecting flights to your final destination”. What they failed to mention was if they would include our luggage on the connecting flights. And… they followed through by not sending us our luggage for a full 48 hours.

Worst flight connections ever but at least the A380 is pretty cool. Heaps of legroom and hundred of movies on your wide screen in-seat entertainment unit. That is, if you can distract yourself from the drama unfolding in the aisle.

Not even 24hrs back in Canada and we we treated to a giant feast of East Coast lobsters that my father and his wife Carolyn hosted.  There is no lobster in the world that compares to the Canadian east coast lobster. They rave about the Tasmanian lobsters in Australia, which are good, but they are just no where near as sweet and tasty as their Canadian Canadian counteerparts. Lisa’s loud exclamation at the dinner table –”Look at the size of these claws!” ensured we were invited to have more lobsters at their Pigeon lake cottage.   Sweet!  As we said, it’s all about subtle hints and lots of gratitude.

When it comes to good food we had to look no further that Lisa’s Mom’s great Eastern European / Germanic cooking. There is nothing like home made potato pancakes, rouladin (tender rolled beef), Spetzle (South German dumplings), stuffed peppers and of course some of her famous Christmas pecan squares.

Turkey has always been something a bit hard to get in Australia except for at Christmas and even then in can be very expensive. They don’t have Thanksgiving in Australia and, lets face it, at Christmas it’s just too damn hot to make cooking turkey very practical (most people have seafood instead).  Our first Turkey dinner was provided by my brother’s wife Sue who created a whole Christmas in July with decorations, a huge group of revellers, and a turnip that people actually like! It was a dinner made even more fun by a water fight and a group mauling of apple pie! Great party. Our second turkey dinner was made by Lisa’s mom who made a nice family sit down meal that felt like such a special occasion. Those types of meals with family are something you truly miss when you are away.

Being home also gave me a chance to cook,  which as most of you know is something I quite enjoy. When you go ten months without cooking it’s a pleasure to get back into it. I cooked a couple good Asian meals and a huge Tuscan feast for Lisa’s parents anniversary.

Ahhhh, the taste of a good home cooked meal! There’s nothing like it.