The O-Z: Uno

So about a month ago I went to Australia (aka OZ), for my brother’s wedding. The reason why I write about it now, is because I have had ample time to reflect, ponder, exaggerate, and make junk up. This was a memorable time and will take me several posts to complete.

We started with a long flight from Buffalo to Cleveland to LA to Auckland to Brisbane which involved over 24 hours of airports and planes. However, it was fairly untraumatic, due largely to the service that Qantas provides. I remember Qantas from the movie Rain Man, “Qantas never crashed.” Anyway, Qantas pampers its guests by bringing out snack bags, overnight bags (socks, toothbrush, sleeping mask), good food, and a personal entertainment center for each flyer. This system, complete with remote, includes books on tape, tv shows, radio stations, and probably about 50 movies. Wicked awesomeness.

Although the flight was fine, I had a lapse in judgement at the end. Here’s a tip: Don’t eat your continental breakfast and your wife’s eggy vege-breakfast and top it off with a bag of ranch cornuts before you land. More on that later.

So we arrived and were greeted by Angela, Amanda’s sister, and Kevin at the airport. It was a rainy day in Brisbane, but pleasant. They took us back to the motel to meet my parents. It was Saturday, but since our trip had been so long, everybody expected us to crash. Well, with the wedding and all, I was in such a happy sociable mood that I thought it would be great to go to church. Dumb dumb dumb.

In our motel room I was beginning to feel a bit hot, but thought I would be okay. So Kevin, Holly, Sara, and I piled into the car with Angela as our driver. We were having a good time catching up when suddenly I started to feel really gross. Now, I have a childhood full of being sick in the car, and I knew what the conclusion usually was. I managed to get out a “I don’t feel good…” and Angela immediately pulled over on the side of the road, I think it was a highway.

I won’t go into extreme detail here, but I introduced myself to Brisbane by tossing my cookies and various airplane foods along that busy road. This is where the cornuts made their encore appearance–out my nose. Sara was very comforting, and everyone else was very nice about it as well.

Unfortunately, we were almost to the church, so rather than make everyone turn around, I spent the service laying in the backseat of the car in abject misery. My attempt to be social consisted of people walking by the car and looking at me as I groaned and inwardly hoped that death would take me.

So I spent all Saturday afternoon with the 24-hour flu able to keep not a jot of food or tiddle of water within my body. And the wedding was the next day. Welcome to Australia.

 

Me trying on a tux just before I reap the whirlwind.

“Hubris goeth before one speweth”