A sad departure

For the first time in all my travels I held a one way ticket as I walked through the international departure gates at Melbourne's airport. As I waved goodbye to my family...my sleep deprived mother and sister attempting to hold it together...while my father takes pictures with his new camera...much to the annoyance of my mum, it was a indeed a strange feeling to not know when I would see Melbourne again.
It was an incredible trip back home though. With only two weeks to spare from our commitments at school and Jen's work, we made the most of it and spent as much time as possible with family and friends. Melbourne lived up to its reputation of providing four seasons of weather in one day, with an open fire on Christmas day, thunderstorms and then a 100 degree heat wave to finish off our time in Australia. Jen got a small amount of the tan she was hoping for...I went slightly red...which is my version of tanning thanks to my Scottish heritage. We also ensured that we took advantage of all those culinary delights that Australia has to offer, importing a small shipload of candy into America with us at the end. This included the famous Australian fish'n'chips, pavlova, Cadbury chocolate, and drinkable beer. I was however devastated to find that my favorite brand of chocolate had been taken from the shelves, leading to the only sensible conclusion that while I lived in Australia I had been eating enough of it to single-handedly warrant its production. Lastly, and thanks to the fact that Australia is a good couple of years behind America, I was still able to purchase the long lost Vanilla Coke...awesome. So it was an amazingly relaxing trip, and a sad day when we climbed aboard our plane for the 14 hours back to LA. We now are set to soak up a final few days of sunshine in LA before heading back to Chicago and onto South Bend.



Pictured:
Our final family feast and fun in the bush (Brett - my legs, my legs...I can't feel my legs)