RADELAIDE :)

I wrote this on my iPod while waiting...endlessly...for my plane to arrive on Sunday night...

Friday: flight delayed again. Tiger while being cheap and not crashing leave a lot to be desired in the punctuality department. A lot to be desired is actually praising them because quite frankly they are f%$ing USELESS!!!

Met by Rachel at airport and she was a sight for sore eyes. Looking fantastic. Proceeded into the city to meet a few friends for a quick beer and catch up. Then headed to Gawler and sleep. Got to bed about 11:30pm and we both just went out like lights.

Saturday: Went out to Angaston to visit Bruce & tash. Had lunch of pies and donuts/cakes. The nieces were a riot as always, such happy kids.

Left Angaston and returned home to Rachel's to prepare for quiz night at Somerton yacht club with Rachel's parents. Night was good, we came 3rd overall. Food was curry assortments and was pretty good.

Got home just after midnight and went to sleep pretty much straight away. Was a long day.

Sunday: Went for a Brunch of pancakes with Rach. Pancakes were as good as I expected..tres bon :)

Initiated plan "none the wiser" when Rachel's kids were due to return and this worked flawlessly. Was good to see them again they are all such great kids. For a while :P Went to my Mums for dinner and then onto the airport for the flight home to Melbourne.

I don't know if you are familiar with the iPod Touch interface but to type a document you have to press each individual letter of each word...there's no predictive text. I thought I had written "The Pillars Of The Earth" because that took me about 2 hours to type out and I thought it was a HUGE, sprawling narrative and when you actually see it on screen it is actually quite small. The time invested was OK though as my Tiger flight was, true to form, Delayed ....again...GRaAAaaaaAAAaaaaaaARrrRRrrRRggGGGhhhH!!!!

It really makes you wonder whether the "Cheaper" price of Tiger Airways flights is worth it when they seem incapable of running to their schedule. They don't even run that many flights and don't fly to many cities anyway so how do they constantly get it so wrong??. The $40 you might save by flying with them is not really a saving when you are CONSTANTLY delayed and reach every destination late inconveniencing anyone who you've organised for a pick-up or adding $20 to your parking costs in my case.

Luckily I had organised to meet up in the Terminal with some friends of mine from Brisbane who had also spent the weekend in Adelaide. Their plane (Jet star) was also delayed by an hour so we had a very cosy and lengthy chat to pass the time. I remembered REALLY quickly how god damn sexy Geraldines French accent is, it just makes you drool (not literally... but almost). When we were on holidays in Tasmania she would read the travel brochures in the car and you'd just not want her to stop talking :) I went on a brilliant driving holiday with Geraldine in 2007 to Tasmania but I haven't seen her since (except for MSN etc). In the interim since then she met her now husband Diego whom I also met that night. He is a Colombian guy who was really nice and they seem very happy together. One thing is for sure if/when they have some kids they would be an awesome mix of French-Columbian.

We talked for a while until Geraldine started getting chocolate withdrawls (I think she hadn't had any chocolate for a few hours!!) and she asked if I knew of "Haighs" chocolate and if she could buy some somewhere in the airport? I was certain that Haighs had a shop in the terminal so we went looking....and looking.....and looking.... Seems this was one of those VERY rare occassions when I was not 100% correct. Luckily no one was there with a camera so I can plausibly deny that it ever happened. We eventually found a shop called "Aussie Icons" that had a small assortment of Haighs chocolate and we both bought a 10-pack of Chocolate frogs ($20 but SOOO worth it....they're like little frog shaped, chocolate flavoured orgasms). Their plane eventually arrived and they left for Brisbane. It's then that I noticed something about flying to Brisbane from "anywhere" in Australia....you will ALWAYS leave for brsbane from the furthest possible gate in the terminal. In Melbourne..gate 56, In Adelaide gate 25 .... weird. So with Geraldine and Diego on their way I went back towards my gate (Gate 13..how fitting is that!!) to be hailed, not 5 steps into the journey, by an anouncement on the PA that my flight would be further delayed by ANOTHER 30mins. I'd had enough...it was Sunday night and not only did I have to leave Adelaide (which is never easy) I had to go to work in the morning 800km away and the plane was now 2.5 hours late...it was time for beer.

I walked over to the "Coopers Ale House" in the terminal and walked up to the bar, the girls there greeted me with a smile and said "We can tell from your stern, angry and disappointed expression that you are on the Tiger flight. This is the biggest glass we have... what can we fill it with for you?" .. That was the best sales pitch for beer I have ever heard :) I CA'd* and said "I'll take a Coopers Lager" and wandered over to the section of the bar where a small group of people were watching the Olympics. It was showing women's gymnastics of some sort, the event where they run towards a small springboard, bounce off it and then do a hand plant on some vaulting horse thing...chuck a few spins and somersaults and land "theoretically" on their feet. I say "theoretically" because a few of the women competing must have thought this step of the routine was optional as they were landing on their heads, knees, bums etc...was pretty funny, but it wasn't, but it was....

As the "revised" arrival time approached the PA crackled over head again to announce that my flight would be further delayed by another 30 mins. You could actually hear the disgusted growls of people wash through the entire terminal like a tsunami of disdain. Not 5 mins later another announcement declared quite cheerfully that our plane had "Just left Melbourne and it was on it's way here". Now, you'd think they would realise that the people who were waiting for this plane wanted to GO TO MELBOURNE on it...and therefor knew it would take it an hour to get to Adelaide, plus cleaning and refueling. then ANOTHER hour before it arrived in Melbourne...we were looking at an arrival at Melbourne Airport of around 1:15am. Disgraceful for a flight that was scheduled to leave at 8pm and ended up leaving at 12 Midnight.

Inspite of this moronically incompetent end to the weekend I had the best time while being in Adelaide again. Thanks to all involved.

*Chuckled Audibly