Return to Oz

Well I figured that I should probably finish off the tale of my trip to Switzerland, for the sake of completeness, even though it is now ages ago and nobody will probably read this.

New Years Eve was a great night, and we had an amazing Raclette dinner at the flat. After dinner we caught the train into Zürich to see the fireworks, but even before that there was some as the people in the flat next door were letting some small ones off.

The train windows were all covered in paint too. It looked like it had gone past some out-of-control party. The city was packed but the fireworks display was a bit of a let down. The fireworks don’t start until 12.20 so the actually midnight celebration was fairly unspectacular, although we did do traditional Russian vodka shots with Nelly’s family. The fireworks were good, but not as impressive as the one’s I saw on my first weekend at Zürifäscht.

By the time we got home, me and one of the other house guests were not in a good state. The first time I threw up I thought it could have been the alcohol, but it didn’t take long to realise that we had caught the stomach bug that the rest of the guys had caught in Austria.

So my 2nd last day in Switzerland was not great, consisting of being sick and packing. On January 2nd, my last day I was feeling a lot better and was ready to go. My snowman was still standing, but had lost his nose.

The long journey home didn’t start well with the handle on my (freaking heavy) luggage not wanting to extend. This meant that I couldn’t roll it along and had to drag/carry it. I was very happy to get to the airport and check it in. I got to catch the Heidi Train again to the terminal, and get on the plane. I sat next to a lovely German guy that worked in Luzern, and spent most of the 12hour flight sleeping and watching movies. I had a very sore neck and felt terrible at the end.

I got a little concerned when I arrived at Hong Kong because they had a illness screening set up that checked you for high temperatures as you got off the plane. I still felt a bit sick but had got well enough that I got through okay.

There was a long wait at Hong Kong airport, then at long last I got to board the QANTAS flight back home. I was in the exit row and it was so much better. The extra leg room did wonders and was much more enjoyable than any of the previous flights. It was a window seat as well and during the night you could see stars out the window. Then in the morning as we flew in over Cairns and the Fitzroy Basin you could see how bad the flooding was. The pilot pointed out Rockhampton as we flew over but I was on the wrong side of the plane. There was a lot of floodwater upstream though.

As much as I loved Switzerland, it felt great coming back through customs and finally being back in Australia. Even little things like having to change back to using Australian currency at the pay phone felt good. As Rockhampton was “an island” as the media called it, my flight home that afternoon was cancelled, so yet more travel awaited me and at that stage I wasn’t sure how or when I would be able to get home.