too many people to catch up with, too many kids to play with, no time for kickin' back and relaxing -- but who'd wanna relax?!
first stop is Sydney where it's dinner and a movie to catch up with my good mates Petey and Troy.
next morning, it's time to take a flight of a different kind: on a sea-plane from sydney to newcastle.
my bro and his wife were cool enough to arrange it all for me to save me the sometimes heinous train-ride -- so instead of having to endure an arduous 3-hour rail journey, i'm treated to thirty minutes of flying over some of the most scenic landscapes that i've ever seen!
you'd think by now that the novelty of flying would have well and truly worn off, but this was a different kind of flying -- at no point did we fly high enough to lose sight of the coastline below us (not even high enough, in fact, or me to lose mobile network coverage on my cell phone -- txt'ing from the sky is fun!)
i even flew almost right over the top of my house, and then i landed on the water right out the front of Ellen's house!
a big family dinner to celebrate my dad's birthday gives me the chance to spend time with the people that i miss most in this world, and each time i hang out with them, i wonder how it is that i'll be able to put myself back on a plane and slingshot myself back to the opposite side of the globe
i spend the next five days catching up with my newcastle friends, and slip so easily back into this life that sometimes it's hard to believe there's another life in another country waiting for you when you get back -- another home, another bed, another set of friends who have never met this set of friends...
so, as usual, thanks for a killer time, fam & friends -- you're too many things for me to describe in a blog, and i hope you know it!
here are the photos:
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...and then it's down to Sydney for a quick catch-up dinner with three of my Sydney favourites: Beck, Dan and James!
it never feels like long enough, huh guys?
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then they dash me off to the airport where i catch my plane back to Dubai.
from there, it's a quick dash to my apartment for a freshen-up shower and to quickly re-pack my suitcase with clothes for a different climate...and just a mere few hours since i was last there, i find myself back at Dubai International Airport where i jump on a plane to the OTHER Newcastle, in the UK, to meet ToTT and Matt to go watch Ms. Minogue in her latest concert production (SPOILER ALERT: for those people planning on seeing Kylie in Aus, you may wanna skip the next section!)
admittedly, i didn't get to see too much of Newcastle, UK, so i don't know how it measures up to my Newcastle, but it certainly seemed like a nice city, and i promise i was well-behaved, and i promise i didn't get into any trouble with any drunks in the mall at two in the morning...that's just not my bag at all!
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stay tuned, next week: FRANKFURT!!!
let the good times roll!!
