The shortest day

7 November 2018

Having lost several hours of the day (nine, in fact) due to the time difference, today felt remarkably short!

Waking Cornelia on the plane, after we had landed wasn’t at all bad. She opened her eyes and said “Morning!” as I pulled her t-shirt over her head and slid on her shorts without any resistance. We waited until the plane was nearly empty before we gathered up our belongings and started the long walk to the baggage hall and customs. Bugsy walked all the way, and didn’t ask to be carried once. It feels as if the whole “Carry me! Carry me!” phase may be over. And I’ll probably miss it now!!!

Ian collected most of our luggage from the carousel, and I wandered off with Cornelia to find her booster seat, which was waiting for us in the oversized baggage area, along with my KitBrix bags. With a full house of luggage, next up was the “Declare” aisle. I had declared everything on our landing card, and when questioned explained that we had anti malaria medication, oat bars, porridge etc and were waved through without having our bags x-rayed and opened, unlike many other passengers, who were being caught with all sorts of contraband cigarettes and foods.

Our Uber arrived quickly and we were whisked off to the Sydney Boulevard Hotel, ushering ourselves up to our room. We rested for a while, not really doing anything, until we realised that we really should go out for dinner before any one of us passed the point of no return. I had googled nearby Italians (guaranteed to mean that Cornelia would eat plenty, having slept through her meal on the plane) but the first place we visited was closed, despite Google telling me it was open. 🙄 We carried on walking to our second choice – hurrah! It was a tiny Italian cafe, where you chose your pasta, then your sauce. A very simple concept that was clearly paying off. The take aways were being churned out the entire time we were there.

It was nice to stretch our legs after the long flight, although there were loads of runners out, making us feel very guilty about our lack of exercise recently! We have vowed to do better in New Zealand.

Cornelia had a bath as soon as we were back in our hotel room, and I read her her new story book, and cuddled her during and after her nightly Mumfi instalment. She was asleep quite quickly and I was also feeling quite weary, but wanting to avoid waking at 03:00, we forced ourselves to stay up until after 22:00, before finally crawling into bed!