The Beginning...

Tuesday, 25 September

The rest of Monday and Tuesday were mostly spent preparing for and wasting time before our holiday trip! It's really boring, so I'll leave it at that.

The ever obliging Blake took us to the airport. Our flight wasn't until 8:00, so our plan was to leave the house at 5:30. This turned out to be a gross over-estimate of the amount of time it would take to get through security. I had checked us in the night before, and we weren't checking any bags, which cut off almost an hour from the time we needed. We literally walked straight through security - pausing only long enough for Kylen to get randomly searched. Friendly Australian security people are wonderful!
Unfortunately, the speed with which we got through meant that by the time we got to the gates our flight hadn't even showed up on the departures board yet. We found seats and waited for about an hour. After a while, I got up to have a look around and see if our flight was up on the board yet.
Nothing.
Wait a bit longer.
Play Egyptian Rat Screw, got my butt handed to me by Melissa, and then we all got up to walk around, toting our suitcases. We got about halfway down the terminal before we found our flight would be leaving from the gate at which we had just been waiting for an hour.
Go figure...
Anyway, the flight was relatively uneventful, save for the awesome girl sitting next to me reading "Clash of Kings" (second game of thrones book). We talked for a bit about how incredibly depressing and addictive they are nd how George R.R. Martin is probably a sociopath who just is doing a mass psychological experiment to see how many people will waste hours of their lives reading depressing stuff - just as long as it has some boobies in it.

After the flight, we verified where we needed to meet our morning bus before grabbing a taxi to go to bunk backpackers in Brisbane. The ride was the normal amount of awkward including a quiet cab driver and long, awkward silences punctuated by someone (usually me) making a comment about the flight or scenery.

Made it to the hostel where we were greeted by the "DOON-CHA, DOON-CHA, DOON-CHA" of the attached bar. It looked like it was hoppin', but we had a early bus in the morning.
The very busy front desk attendant was fabulously sweet and impressive. One of those people helping five people at once and everyone feels like they're getting her full attention. Thank god she was smart, too, because it turns out the airhead on the phone I talked to to reserve the room didn't actually reserve it. They had no record of my name or reservation.
Panic.
It was 11:00pm, we were in the middle of Brisbane, we had a bus leaving from the airport in 8 hours time, and had just spent $40 on a cab to get here.
She must have noticed the panic on our faces because she said it sounded like it was their fault, and she would see what she could do.
After a few more minutes of silent panic - she rescued us! She gave us a four person room for the eight person room rate on the condition we only stayed one night.
Saved!
We made our way up to room 404. Spacious, two bunk beds and individual showers and toilet. Sweet!
Finally getting over the adrenaline rush we headed to bed for an early morning.

Wednesday, 26 September

Alarm at 6:30 am. I just went to bed! Stumble for toilet, contacts, and teeth brushing.
We stripped the sheets off of our beds and headed downstairs (choosing to avoid the questionable elevator we had taken up the night before), hopped in a cab, and made it to the Sun-Air bus with enough time to get some breakfast at a cafe inside the airport.