Flashback Friday: The Bra Incident

My very first flight to Australia when I was 17 years old, took a staggering 25 hours.  Yeah, 25 hours to get to Australia.  That’s what happens when you fly Canada 3000 from Vancouver to Sydney via Honolulu, Rarotonga, and Auckland.  But hey, I was paying for it myself, and it only cost me $600 return, so I didn’t really care.

My host family picked me up from the airport and when I got to their house, I had just enough time to shower away 25 hours worth of sweat and unpleasantness from so much travel before the party started.  They had another exchange student leaving the very next day and she was having a going away party.  She was in the room I’d be in, so I had the den/study for the night, which happened to be downstairs right near the kitchen and living room- the party area.

I made the rounds, meeting everyone, declaring my sobriety and making a bet with someone for $50 that I wouldn’t drink the entire time I was in Australia.  Ha!  That didn’t happen!

I must have needed to get something from my temporary room because I went in there for some reason or another.

My host brother Dean must have wanted something out of there too.  It was the study after all.

As I walked in, his face went bright red.  Someone else was in there too.  I can’t remember who 10.5 years later, but there was someone else there.  He looked guilty, but I wasn’t sure why (Maybe because I’d been flying for 25 hours was in a new time zone, and was pretty much a zombie by that stage).

Yeah, I had permed burgandy hair, so what?

I gave them a funny look and they quickly scrambled out of there.

I didn’t get boobs until I was 18 years old.  Yeah, 18.  When I was 17, I was 98 pounds, still flat chested and could buy bras in the tween section.  Doesn’t sound very exciting, but tween bras are awesome!  They are sparkly.  They are funky.  I’m pretty sure they have the awesomeness to make you feel better about having absolutely no boobs. They make you feel a little bit better about it.

One of my awesome sparkly funky tween bras was sitting at the top of my luggage.  Hmmm…Maybe my host brother and friend saw it and then got embarrassed when I came in?  I didn’t say anything.  My bras were awesome, I didn’t care who saw them!

It wasn’t until later that my host brother told me that he had actually picked up the awesome sparkly bra, held it up, and showed it to his friend.  I apparently walked in on it, but was too oblivious to notice him quickly dropping my bra back into the suitcase.  He thought I had seen him with the bra.

I wish adult I-actually-have-boobs-now bras were as awesome as tween bras.  I miss the tween bras.  Humph. But I do like having boobs….

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The lost day

NYE, 2000.  I was all alone, in a hotel room in Canada at the age of 17.  My parents had driven me there the day before, stayed the night and then left on New Years Eve.  I think I went to sleep at about 9:30.  I’ve never been a late night person.  In the morning, I got my breakfast at the hotel, made sure I had everything in my giant suitcase, nothing left behind, checked out, and got the shuttle bus to the airport in Vancouver.  Check out was at 10.  My flight wasn’t until 8pm.  Sigh.  At least I had a good book.  Ok, I don’t really remember, but I must have, other wise I would have gone crazy waiting that long in an airport with no one to talk to, and I don’t remember having a terrible time, so deductive reasoning tells me I must have had a good book.

Finally people besides myself started to arrive at the departure gate.  Seems my flight was full.  A girl nearby spilled her coffee all over herself and the floor.  “Can you watch my stuff while I go get some napkins?”  She asked me.  Maybe I looked like a nice person or something because I wasn’t the nearest person to her.  The thought that she could be doing something sinister or have something sinister in her bags didn’t cross my mind.  I was 17 and naive.  She finally came back with some napkins.  The flight was already boarding and I was starting to think I might have to ditch my post and get on.  I rushed to get on the plane as soon as she got back.  Turns out she had the seat right next to me on the flight and we got along great.  It was good to have a travel buddy when the total travel time was 25 hours, with a stop in Honolulu, Rarotonga, Auckland, and finally on to Sydney.  I guess you get what you pay for.  This crazy long flight with Canada 3000 (now defunct) was something ridiculous like $400 return including tax.

Sure it was a big trip for a 17 year old all by herself, but I’ve been flying by myself since I was 9.  I used to fly from Washington to Minnesota in the summer to see my cousin/best friend Jennifer.  I didn’t like anything they served on the plane.  I used to be so picky.  I didn’t think to bring any snacks.  I figured if I didn’t like what they had on the plane I could buy something at one of the numerous airports we stopped at.  Good theory, not so good in practice.  When we got to Hawaii, it was the middle of the night and none of the shops were open.  Not to mention we weren’t actually allowed in the airport, only a little transit lounge.  Rarotonga (Cook Islands) was a tiny little airport that consisted of one little open air building and a moveable staircase to get you on and off the plane.  No food stores in sight.  I tried to buy the only thing resembling food I could find, a bag of chips, but they didn’t take US dollars, Canadian dollars, or credit/debit/eftpos cards.  Only whatever currency that they use, which I didn’t have any of and they didn’t have any money exchange.

I can’t remember why I couldn’t get any food in New Zealand, but I couldn’t.  Finally I arrived in Sydney, to an excited Lauren and my new Exchange family.  I smelled like B.O. I was greasy, and I was wearing way too many clothes for the summer weather.  Oh, and I really needed to eat.  I left on 1 Jan and arrived on 3 Jan.  I missed an entire day with all the different timezones, but it didn’t matter because now, I  was officially an exchange student.

I saw a McDonald’s and got really excited.  Finally I could eat!  I don’t know what my host family first thought of me when I arrived, after not having a shower and travelling for 2 days, but they were (still are) awesome.

10 years later (tomorrow to be exact), I am still here.  Happy  Decade to me!  Now I just have to get my citizenship.  I can’t really put it off much longer, my visa runs out next month.  Well, not my whole visa, I can remain in Australia indefinitely, I just can’t leave and come back.