So I’m home. The flight home in Business was well worth the $$$. The space, the comfort, the privacy, all add up to an experience that I must go back to. The Business Class suites (yes they are called suites on Air NZ) were just so comfortable. I managed to get 3-4 hours sleep which for me is a miracle. And in the little privacy of the suite your able to just sit back and watch movies if you want and you won’t really disturb the person next to you which is great. I managed to watch only a couple of movies and a few tv shows because of the sleep and got off in Auckland after a wonderful Supper (4 courses) and Breakfast feeling amazingly refreshed. Went to the lounge in Auckland and cleaned my teeth etc and missed saying goodbye to Amy 🙁 Amy was rushed off to her next flight as we arrived late so she almost missed her connection to Wellington.

My flight from Auckland to Brisbane was uneventful, watched a few TV shows and just relaxed as the final 3 hours of the trip sank in. I got home realising it was all over. Depression didn’t really set in I guess thankfully as I know during the tour we talked about how rough it can be coming home from a big trip and just feeling like its back to the grind. I didn’t get that feeling (yet) thankfully. It was wierd to come home and a lot had changed. Beattie no longer Premier (WTF!), the dollar hitting an all time high while I was away (dammit!!!), Mum and Dad had been away and even they had been out of touch. I had changed a bit from this trip, I realised I need to be more tolerant of other people and have looked a lot more at the history of things. Hitting all the museums and memorials in DC (a lot of them War memorials), part of me sort of looked at the memorials and saw just how much people sacrificed for our freedom and I know that I need to pay that back by being a good person.

So after one day off and catching up with Suzanne & Brendan and hearing all the stuff that has been going on, caught up with the lovely Yena and told her about her body double in Cairns. Lizzie in Cairns scared the crap out of me as I thought it was Yena to begin with and I was like “WTF she didn’t tell me she was coming to Brisbane” but all was fine and Lizzie was a great person, hopefully can catch up with her in the future. The big thing that I have been doing since I got home was unpacking and putting stuff away. My 2nd bag turns out was screened in NY or LA as it was opened and a nice little note was placed inside my bag by the TSA. I was a bit suprised that it had happened but I didn’t have any locks on it which was probably a good thing in the end.

I have been working on the photos I took which worked out to be a total of 2500 photos. I still have to work on my panorama from the Grand Canyon (i’ll probably do that on the weekend) and still scan in all the group photos, but I have cut the 2500 back to 379, touched up, adjusted, removed red eye where needed, captioned, ordered and reviewed everything and now they are online. I could not believe how long it has taken with all of these photos. Captioning them last night took almost 2 hours! plus another hour to save them all and then upload them. But I want to share all the photos with everyone so they can see the amazing things I did. Some of the shots from the Canyon look stunning!

Anyway it is time for me to go to work. 2nd day back. Found out yesterday when I got to work that I am now permanently in Groups which is good as I don’t have to worry and can just put my self back into concentrating on work for a while. It has been good to be able to just relax while away, come home refreshed and now can start a new chapter in my life!

USA 2007