Signing in from Adelaide

Four months, fifteen days, fourteen hours in transit and countless stressful moments later, I am in Australia. I am here! In Adelaide! And it's all good!

The trip to NAIA was a wet one. It began to rain an hour before we left Maginhawa. I got to see Andrei too before I left and was able to say goodbye. We trudged through Metro Manila traffic in a slightly rattly taxi cab maneuvered by a man who had a bad cough. Ugh. I was glad to arrive at the airport and step out of the cab if only to avoid his phlegm-y hacking.

Papa was at the airport when we arrived. He helped pull my luggage along and we lined up to enter the main atrium. This was where I said my goodbyes. I embraced everyone tightly, told Monique to take care, and Thea that I was proud of her. I tried not to cry. When I said goodbye to Mama, she just cried and looked at me deeply; words seemed to escape her. She hugged me tightly and I said I loved her and to take care. They stayed at the entryway, waving to me til I entered the atrium. I tried to hold back tears as I loaded my bags on the conveyor, got checked in and cleared immigration.

It wasn't til I was at the waiting lounge that the enormity of the moment hit me: I was leaving them. It will be eight whole months before I see my siblings, hug and kiss my parents and have Sunday dinner with them again. As I write this it seems that the reality of missing them has just started to settle, and the tears I held back so heroically at the airport are starting to fall only now.

I suppose this is normal. Now that I am by myself, away from the strangers who were looking at me as I teared up at the airport, I feel safe enough to allow myself the emotion. I also didn't want to let myself go in front of my family and make them worry. It also allowed me to focus on one thing at a time, not least of which was keeping up my energy and wits for my first solo long-haul travel. A pleasant surprise was being upgraded to business class for the flight from Manila to Hongkong. I was hoping I'd be lucky on the flight from Hongkong to Adelaide but no dice, hehe. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I loved the space and the service (the flight attendant addressed me by name!) and the food was great. :) I promised myself I'll work hard to afford business class trips from now on. haha.

The flight to Adelaide was all right too. I got a window seat in the last row of the first economy class section which meant I had some space to myself where I could dump my things and not worry about encroaching on other people's space. There was turbulence, but it wasn't so bad. I supposed with big planes, some of the shakiness is dissipated, unlike small, 13-seaters where you can feel the aircraft actually bounce from the impact of clouds or strong wind.

I didn't get to sleep very well on the plane. For one the turbulence woke me up a few times, and there was a baby who was feeling so uncomfortable all he did was bawl. The poor mom was probably so stressed and exhausted. But so was I. I kept glancing at my watch, wondering why time seemed to move so slowly (we were to arrive at 9.45 am) and why were still so far from Adelaide. We had spend a good 5 hours in the air already and the sun should have been up. Then I realized, 1) my watch was still on Manila time, and 2) the blinds were shut. When I adjusted my time, I saw that we were an hour from landing, and as if on cue, the pilot came on the PA system to say we were arriving ahead of schedule. I heaved a big sigh of relief, and the sadness of leaving my family turned into tummy-churning excitement.

We landed at 9.35 am. I cleared immigration, and waited for my luggage. Quarantine laws in Australia are very impressive. Imagine they only ask to see your passport once during the airport processing but your disembarkation and quarantine card gets viewed no less than four times. They take it very seriously and this makes you want to cooperate. One of my carry on bags were suspect, according to a brown beagle, and the quarantine officer requested to see my disembarkation card. I was asked to enumerate what food I may have in there and I said all I had were mints I bought in the grocery at home, and some cup cakes from my airline breakfast. Apparently, this last one was the culprit because there was cheese in it, and the beagle detected it, followed by a scanner. And all this time I was more worried about the vitamins I had brought with me!

Anyway, once that was settled, I exited the processing doors and wheeled my trolley out onto the arrivals atrium. I scanned the small crowd for Benc and saw him waving, a camera pointed at me. I ran to him, hugged him, kissed him, took in his scent and his presence, and all anxiety and tiredness melted away. This was what I had been waiting for for a whole year's quarter. And on this crisp, cool beautiful autumn morning, everything finally fell into place.

Welcome to Adelaide, I told myself. This is the beginning of something really good.