day 25. the worst day.

sigh. even writing about our last hours in australia makes me sad!

we woke up, checked out of the hostel, and hit the road with what we thought was plenty of time to get back to sydney airport. just like every other flight, we ended up being much later than anticipated. although the drive was fine, it took much longer than we planned for - and we got a bit sidetracked, even though we had a gps.

so, we pulled into the rental car return with only about 10 minutes to run to the counter and check in within the 2 hour deadline. unfortunately, the hertz return spaces were not very well marked, and the one hertz employee was not particularly helpful to us - making it a bit more frenzied as we tried to hurry the process. we finally got him to help us, and we ran off in search of the check-in counter.

there was a very long line to check in, and, unlike our other rushes to the airport, there was no customer service desk at the qantas international check-in. so we were stuck in line, with the minutes to check-in ticking down. 9... 8... we had hardly moved in the line. 7... 6... we were still 10 or 15 people away from the front of the line. i started to wander in search of someone to ask about skipping ahead in line. i finally ran into a woman who was clearly headed out on her break, but i stopped her anyways...
"excuse me, my friend and i are dreadfully late, and are just about to miss our check-in time for the flight to san francisco."
"where are you headed?"
"san francisco"
"oh, you still have another 30 minutes to check in."
"oh! i thought we had to check in 2 hours before the flight?"
"no, just 90 minutes."
it was another airport miracle! missing our flight home would have been fantastic in some ways (i would not have minded another few days in australia!), but also would have sucked in other ways (i don't even want to know how much it costs to buy a one-way ticket from sydney to SF just a day or two before the flight).

we were able to breathe a bit more normally after finding out we had more time. after checking our luggage (and watching the security dog train on the plain clothes officer pretending to check in next to us), making a quick bathroom stop, and passing through security, we headed straight for the duty free shop. we had planned for weeks to do some shopping in the airport. there were a few things that we knew we wanted that were either inconvenient to lug around with us (i.e., australian beer), or were better to purchase at the airport (i.e., cheesy souveniers). as we were shopping, we very quickly realized that there was no beer in the duty free! only wine and hard alcohol! this was really disappointing, as we both had planned to take some back with us, and we could have picked 6-packs up at any number of gas stations or stores we had stopped at or driven past. boo!

we also didn't have quite as much time as we had hoped (remember how we planned to be there with plenty of time before our 2-hour deadline?), so we didn't get to do as much shopping as we would have liked. but, we got a few last minute things, and headed to the gate. as much as i did NOT want to, it was time to board. we got onto the plane, settled into our seats, and said goodbye to the wonderful land of oz.  :'(