Well, I am speechless!
While overseas I had to buy another phone because mine would not work, much to my extreme annoyance. I found out why today.
I had rung Telstra to find out why it took nearly two months for a missed call to appear on my phone - no kidding, it said 15 June (!) and I had cleared all missed calls and messages from my phone before I left - but completely forgot about that and had an interesting chat with an Indian woman about why my phone didn't work overseas.
Turns out... TELSTRA NEVER TURNED ON INTERNATIONAL ROAMING ON MY PHONE!!!!!
Unfortunately I don't have a record of when I spoke to them to get it set up (at least two weeks if not a month before I departed Oz). The woman checked on my account and there was no record of when I spoke to them. If there had been then Telstra would be getting a nice letter of demand with a copy of the bill for the phone I had to buy in order to keep in touch with my husband.
Telstra is definitely not my favourite organisation right now.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Home safe!
I realise it's been over a week since my last post, but I've needed that week to catch my breath, get over jetlag, get enough sleep (I've been dozing off by 9pm!) and enjoy a very unexpected and very pleasant anniversary celebration with hubby (a night at the Hilton is definitely pleasant!).
This is the other photo of the Reunion Tower - the one I took from my hotel window not long before heading off to the airport. It was pretty spectacular during the night - it has a "dome" of lights over it which flash on and off in pretty patterns.
The sky was endless blue - a good omen for the flight. I have to say that I didn't have any problems with my ears at all the whole time - I shall definitely remember to take head cold tablets with me on any future trips!
The Airbus... OMG! What a comfortable flight. The seats have been specially designed by Rocaro (not sure of the spelling - they design seats for racing cars) and have these little "wings" that you can adjust to support your head while you sleep. Good amount of legroom too. The flight was around 15 hours - thank goodness for in-seat entertainment! Even though we took off half an hour late we still got to Sydney at about the right time. I was on the aisle and close to the facilities - very handy. Dinner was served a couple of hours into the flight, then we were all given a "snack pack" which contained a bottle of water and various small packs of snacks - M&Ms, crackers etc) for munching on during the night. I didn't investigate but apparently there are also vending machines somewhere on the plane - I'd found the seating plan on the Qantas website so I could see where I was seated. On the seat when we boarded there was the requisite pillow and blanket AND a care pack containing socks, an eye mask, a lanyard (presumably to carry the care pack round your neck) and a toothbrush and toothpaste.
After dinner and watching The Boat that Rocked (yay for pirate radio - it kept me sane in the sixties!) I dozed off, and woke up with only 6hrs left to go, so I must have got a decent amount of sleep. I munched on my snack pack, watched last year's Dr Who Christmas Special (I'd taken photos of the costumes at the Dr Who exhibition in Cardiff but had no clue as to who wore them! All was revealed, so to speak!) and a couple of episodes of Thank God You're Here, catnapped a bit more, then brekkie was served.
There was minimal turbulence on the whole flight - fantastic. I think the only turbulence was when we passed over various islands, and even then it was barely a rattle.
As the sun was coming up I decided to watch the landing through the Skycam - the Airbus has a camera in the tail so you can watch the flight if you want - most of it was just the light flashing on the top of the plane - but the landing was incredible. It gives you a whole new perspective on coming into the airport and flying over Botany Bay.
I highly recommend flying by Airbus. I was nervous at first - a double-decker plane just doesn't seem right somehow - but now I've been on one I'm quite happy to fly on one again.
All in all, I had a fabulous trip. Even the rainy days were terrific. Even having to backtrack from Tintagel to Bude (only 20 miles) wasn't a hassle - although we would have missed being stuck behind the traction engine!
Now I'm home, I want to go back again but I shall restrain myself for a couple of years. Maybe even three and go over for my next milestone birthday. My cousins all think that's a great idea. Sue of course would like me to be over there all the time.
As hubby had said on one of our phone conversations, the cat did spend every day lying on my bed.
The pale pink underside of the doona cover had a distinctly grey tinge, and when I brushed it with the magic brush I had a big handful of fur! She was most unimpressed when I took that cover off and replaced it with the faux silk one (that she slides off when she jumps up on the bed!).
She's forgiven me now and spends her days back on her favourite coverlet on the chaise. At least she didn't look at me as if to say "Who are you?" when I got out of the taxi last Friday.
I didn't have to worry about my jute bag I'd bought at a National Trust property - it was allowed in without a problem. I've since seen someone else with one, so was all worried for no reason. I made my connecting flight to Cairns with minutes to spare - they have obviously learned a valuable lesson at Sydney Airport - AQIS people were wandering around the baggage carousels asking to see incoming passenger cards and if they were okay they'd stamp them green so you could go out through the express exit. Much more civilised than everyone having to queue up!
Now it's back to reality - writers group, writing (I did actually start a short story while overseas), working out what the ***** is going on at work (much craziness there with new systems coming in, but my stand-ins did a fabulous job and I didn't return to a desk piled high with problems) and generally getting back into the rhythm of my life. All the photos have been transferred from the Tardis to Red Dwarf (my desktop pc where I am now).
I did have a bit of fun the first couple of days with driving - Sue's car has european controls, ie the indicator and wiper stalks are switched - but I seemed to be okay with indicating for turns. The fun came when I went to overtake someone and promptly turned on the wipers! I did that a couple of days but now it's all fallen back into place. I also picked up an interesting phrase which I suspect I will manage to lose - being blue-lighted (ie in an ambulance with all lights and sirens going!). I didn't ask but I suspect UK ambulances only have blue lights on them, hence the term. Here, of course, we have blue AND red lights - and sadly I've seen too many ambulances this last week - two crashes in 14 hours in the same stretch of road!
I'm reading the book Sue bought me for my birthday - set in Avebury and all about the man who bought the village and tried to restore the stone circle - and I can "see" all of it.
I'm really glad I did this trip - it was worth every cent both physically and emotionally. Now to translate my experiences into a book - that's the fun!
This is the other photo of the Reunion Tower - the one I took from my hotel window not long before heading off to the airport. It was pretty spectacular during the night - it has a "dome" of lights over it which flash on and off in pretty patterns.The sky was endless blue - a good omen for the flight. I have to say that I didn't have any problems with my ears at all the whole time - I shall definitely remember to take head cold tablets with me on any future trips!
The Airbus... OMG! What a comfortable flight. The seats have been specially designed by Rocaro (not sure of the spelling - they design seats for racing cars) and have these little "wings" that you can adjust to support your head while you sleep. Good amount of legroom too. The flight was around 15 hours - thank goodness for in-seat entertainment! Even though we took off half an hour late we still got to Sydney at about the right time. I was on the aisle and close to the facilities - very handy. Dinner was served a couple of hours into the flight, then we were all given a "snack pack" which contained a bottle of water and various small packs of snacks - M&Ms, crackers etc) for munching on during the night. I didn't investigate but apparently there are also vending machines somewhere on the plane - I'd found the seating plan on the Qantas website so I could see where I was seated. On the seat when we boarded there was the requisite pillow and blanket AND a care pack containing socks, an eye mask, a lanyard (presumably to carry the care pack round your neck) and a toothbrush and toothpaste.
After dinner and watching The Boat that Rocked (yay for pirate radio - it kept me sane in the sixties!) I dozed off, and woke up with only 6hrs left to go, so I must have got a decent amount of sleep. I munched on my snack pack, watched last year's Dr Who Christmas Special (I'd taken photos of the costumes at the Dr Who exhibition in Cardiff but had no clue as to who wore them! All was revealed, so to speak!) and a couple of episodes of Thank God You're Here, catnapped a bit more, then brekkie was served.
There was minimal turbulence on the whole flight - fantastic. I think the only turbulence was when we passed over various islands, and even then it was barely a rattle.
As the sun was coming up I decided to watch the landing through the Skycam - the Airbus has a camera in the tail so you can watch the flight if you want - most of it was just the light flashing on the top of the plane - but the landing was incredible. It gives you a whole new perspective on coming into the airport and flying over Botany Bay.
I highly recommend flying by Airbus. I was nervous at first - a double-decker plane just doesn't seem right somehow - but now I've been on one I'm quite happy to fly on one again.
All in all, I had a fabulous trip. Even the rainy days were terrific. Even having to backtrack from Tintagel to Bude (only 20 miles) wasn't a hassle - although we would have missed being stuck behind the traction engine!
Now I'm home, I want to go back again but I shall restrain myself for a couple of years. Maybe even three and go over for my next milestone birthday. My cousins all think that's a great idea. Sue of course would like me to be over there all the time.
As hubby had said on one of our phone conversations, the cat did spend every day lying on my bed.
The pale pink underside of the doona cover had a distinctly grey tinge, and when I brushed it with the magic brush I had a big handful of fur! She was most unimpressed when I took that cover off and replaced it with the faux silk one (that she slides off when she jumps up on the bed!).She's forgiven me now and spends her days back on her favourite coverlet on the chaise. At least she didn't look at me as if to say "Who are you?" when I got out of the taxi last Friday.
I didn't have to worry about my jute bag I'd bought at a National Trust property - it was allowed in without a problem. I've since seen someone else with one, so was all worried for no reason. I made my connecting flight to Cairns with minutes to spare - they have obviously learned a valuable lesson at Sydney Airport - AQIS people were wandering around the baggage carousels asking to see incoming passenger cards and if they were okay they'd stamp them green so you could go out through the express exit. Much more civilised than everyone having to queue up!
Now it's back to reality - writers group, writing (I did actually start a short story while overseas), working out what the ***** is going on at work (much craziness there with new systems coming in, but my stand-ins did a fabulous job and I didn't return to a desk piled high with problems) and generally getting back into the rhythm of my life. All the photos have been transferred from the Tardis to Red Dwarf (my desktop pc where I am now).
I did have a bit of fun the first couple of days with driving - Sue's car has european controls, ie the indicator and wiper stalks are switched - but I seemed to be okay with indicating for turns. The fun came when I went to overtake someone and promptly turned on the wipers! I did that a couple of days but now it's all fallen back into place. I also picked up an interesting phrase which I suspect I will manage to lose - being blue-lighted (ie in an ambulance with all lights and sirens going!). I didn't ask but I suspect UK ambulances only have blue lights on them, hence the term. Here, of course, we have blue AND red lights - and sadly I've seen too many ambulances this last week - two crashes in 14 hours in the same stretch of road!
I'm reading the book Sue bought me for my birthday - set in Avebury and all about the man who bought the village and tried to restore the stone circle - and I can "see" all of it.
I'm really glad I did this trip - it was worth every cent both physically and emotionally. Now to translate my experiences into a book - that's the fun!
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