02 October 2011

Qantas Delays & Travelling Days


Melbourne: SHOPPING!

Hey, NOT my fault that it was on my way to my next meeting. And that I need a new purse. A new season dictates a new bag...duh!

An infamous Melbourne tram.

The tourist in me couldn't help myself. SO MANY UGGS!!!

The adventures of a social media superstar continue! I actually wrote this entry a few weeks ago, in a cab on the way to the airport, but haven’t gotten around to posting it. I’m one fantastic blogger, aren’t I!? So I’ll just copy and paste it below, and you can press the rewind button in your head. Yes, this is a time travelling blog entry; maybe I’m not so bad, after all!


Today, Qantas (the major Australian airline) was on strike for whatever reason Qantas workers go on strike. As such, there’s a chance that the strikes could continue tomorrow. As life goes, I’m meant to be hosting a half day workshop in Melbourne tomorrow morning on social media, and the conference organisers were worried that my morning flight would be cancelled or delayed due to the strikes (the conference starts at 8:45 am so I have the 6 am flight booked). So at the last minute they decided that I need to fly to Melbourne TONIGHT to avoid any such potential drama. Alas, participants paid a fair bit of money to attend and would be pretty upset if it was cancelled at the last minute. So here I am, heading to a 9:15 pm flight (that’s all that was left), landing me in Melbourne at 10:45 tonight only for a 8:45 am start tomorrow. My workshop runs until 1 pm, and then I have meetings at 2, 3:15 and 4:30. My flight back to Sydney tomorrow night (the lady on the phone informed me today) was “downgraded” due to the strikes and thus pushed back from a 6:30 departure to a 8:50 departure. Meaning, of course, that I’ll land in Sydney around 10:15 and will probably get home around 11 (I’ve found that taxi queues on Thursday nights are the worst). On the upside (trick prepositional phrase; there is no upside), they’re putting me up in a nice serviced apartment in the city tonight and I can probably order ridiculously expensive room service and take what I want from the mini bar!!! Then again, I won’t get to the hotel until 11:30 and I can’t drink due to my early workshop tomorrow. See? That’s not an upside at all. Mean.


Alas, there is much travelling to be done in the upcoming weeks. This week I’m in Brisbane to speak at the HRSummit. Next week I’m in Melbourne to conduct some training sessions and to meet with new clients. The week after that I’m in Adelaide & Perth again, to conclude my Australian-wide tour of the “How-To of Social Media: A Hands-On Approach.”

Hopefully, come November, I can stay Sydney-side for a few weeks. November brings my 25th birthday (sob, gasp, tear..I’m getting old) as well as the end of my lease period. Meaning, of course, that I’ll have to move, which is never an easy task. Finding a place will be difficult enough (Sydney is SO expensive!) and then the process of moving is going to be at the very least mildly annoying. Now that I think about it, I’ve lived in 5 different places in the past 2 years! Coogee (where I fell in love with Australia), Waverley, Randwick, Coogee again, and now Maroubra. Having said that, I never had any furniture to speak of until I moved to Maroubra, so moving hasn't really been that bad. This time around, I’m going to try and live closer to work (North Sydney), because let’s face it: I’m a workaholic. I can sit here and tell myself that I’m not, look around for places in the Eastern Suburbs, close to my favourite pubs and beaches, but at the end of the day it makes most sense to live north of the bridge. Hopefully, more blog entries coming soon as I traverse Australia and endeavour to find an affordable and convenient place in which to reside!

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