There's No Place Like Home

Friday

With the exception of Cerine arising briefly to snap a picture of the sunrise over the city, Sherry was up and about before anyone, savoring the chance for a leisurely, solo cup of coffee in the Executive Lounge. Ro thought it was pretty cool that he and Mark could take a bath and a shower, respectively, at the same time since there were separate ones in the big bathroom. Ro bathed and dressed himself by the time Sherry got back - he's really growing up, or maybe it was just the sugar rush from the Krispy Kreme. Sherry was in a mopey mood, still mourning over the loss of Bear Bear and taking it much harder than Ro. They'd been through a lot together! She bought Bear Bear at the hospital gift shop when Ro was a baby and really sick with a Staph infection in his hand.

Last look at the city

A little taste of home

Sherry liked this lobby art made with dish scrubbers

Cerine made our foray through the Melbourne airport a little too exciting. Among her other hobbies, she likes to knit, especially on long plane rides. She has a small pair of FAA-approved blunt plastic scissors that she got as part of a gift set over 20 years ago, with a tiny metal edge just sharp enough to cut yarn, which have been inspected by hand at multiple airports and always let through...until today. When the guard wanted to confiscate them, Cerine started getting quite indignant. Things got pretty heated, actually, and Mark and Sherry were urging her to just drop it and move on. She ended up calling the guy a few choice words, causing him to threaten to arrest her, at which point she finally backed down and walked off in a huff. Ro had saucer plate eyes watching the drama unfold, and for those of you who do not know Cerine - trust us, you would never in a million years believe this was happening. It would have been hysterical if it wasn't so potentially serious.

As we waited around for our plane, we burned the last of our Aussie cash. To replace Bear Bear, Mark bought a stuffed koala for Ro that he quickly dubbed Sharky. After buying stamps for our postcards, Sherry had held just enough in reserve for one last cup of coffee in Oz. Priorities, eh? Our flight was pretty uneventful. Mark watched The Ugly Truth (predictable, but funny) and The French Connection (they have classics, too), Sherry caught Julie & Julia, while Ro watched Bolt and took a much-needed nap.

Sharky the Koala

Once in Auckland, Ro played on his usual coin-operated helicopter ride for a while, then Sherry brought us takeaway from a salad joint. We struck up a conversation with a big Maori guy sitting next to us in the terminal, and Ro entertained him with the Maori version of the New Zealand national anthem he had learned in school. Once we boarded our little pond-hopper to Tauranga, Mark forced Ro to sit with him while Sherry sat in the next row back so she could have a break; Ro had napped with his restless feet across Sherry's lap on nearly the whole flight from Melbourne.

Ro lending a helping hand

Kia ora, mate

My feet hurt!

At home, we were greeted by a newly tiled bathroom (the whole building was getting them done), but no rollaway bed as we had requested before we left. So, we improvised with Cerine sleeping in our bed and we took Ro's. We made a pallet for Ro in his beach tent so he could sleep in the same room as us, but it took him forever to fall asleep. Sherry kept wondering why he couldn't fall asleep at what she thought was midnight Melbourne time until Mark reminded her that the time difference ran in the opposite direction - it was only 8pm for Ro. Once he was down for the count, we all relaxed with some G&T's (made with frozen tonic ice cubes - Mark's idea), looked at photos from our trip, and laughed along with some more Flight of the Conchords.

It's just for tonight, Ro