As we sat in the terminal in Sydney waiting for our last flight and the plane pulled up to the jetway I looked over and noticed a couple of cute coeds who were giggling and waving to someone on the tarmac. I was wondering who in the world they were waving to until I saw one of the pilots rushing through the waiting area with a big smile on his face to greet the two coeds. “Hello my little Chickadees,” a strange way to greet a couple of girls by a pilot was my first thought. Then he grabbed them by the hands and walked them to the front of the line and started down the jetway. As we boarded the plane I looked and Lou and said, “I wonder where the Chickadees will be sitting?”
As we stepped on the plane, there they were in the front seat giggling and smiling like a couple of little school girls. The flight was uneventful and the announcement came on telling us to buckle up and put away our electronic devices as we were about to land. I looked up and here comes our love struck pilot out of the cockpit to see his Chickadees. I sat in amazement as the pilot was flirting with the two girls knowing we were coming in for a landing. I asked the flight attendant if it was normal for the pilot to come out of the cockpit to flirt with girls and she informed me they were off-duty crew. I’m not sure that made me any more comfortable and it was an introduction to the laid-back nature of the Auzzies.
Our plane landed on schedule and Lou was about as amped up as a kid on Christmas morning. She almost sprinted off the plane, hunting the little grandbaby. We walked through the little domestic terminal looking for Ash and Kel, then on to the baggage claim, still no sign of Ash or Kel. We walked out to the front of the terminal still hunting grandbabies, but still no Ash or Kel. Finally we gave her a call and she said she was waiting in baggage claim, so Lou sprinted across the airport as I waited with the bags.
A few short minutes later here she comes but without a grandbaby in her hands or a smile on her face. I yelled to her, “Where are they?” She shrugged, “I don’t know.” So I got on the phone again and called Ash, “Where are you?” She said she was standing at the coffee shop. By this time I was back in the terminal and looked around but there was no coffee shop in sight, in fact there were no any stores of any kind in the domestic terminal. She was still on the phone when I heard her ask someone beside her if she was in the domestic terminal and I could hear the guy on the other end say, “Honey you are an hour away from the domestic terminal.” You could hear the wind get knocked out of both of us at the same time. Quickly I looked around, first at the rental cars then I noticed a shuttle to downtown Melbourne. I went to the counter and asked the lady when the next shuttle left and she said “right now”. “When does the next one leave?” “Eight o’clock tonight”, six hours later, I whipped out the cash and we were on the shuttle bus in five minutes headed towards Grandbaby Utopia. Ash, Lou and I hit the CBD (Central Business District) of Melbourne about the same time and within a few minutes we had Umi and Keller hugging each other. What a trip, now for some fun.
