By Margaret Pearce
I was jet lagged for all of six weeks in England. Every time the kids took me out to lunch, they had to wake me up after our main course for dessert. They said it was very embarrassing having me fall flat on my face in the mashed potatoes every time they took their eyes off me.
In Hong Kong the currency looked the same as mine back home, but tipping is definitely un-Australian. My daughter yelled that five dollars was a lot to tip a Hong Kong toilet attendant.
Nobody warned me about New Zealand being three hours ahead. I had an undignified scramble to catch the plane to Los Angeles. Boarding was 7.30 p.m. New Zealand time, at which exact moment I was dreamily browsing through a shop with my watch on 4.30 p.m. Melbourne time.
I missed several shuttle flights from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Everyone just gets on the shuttle plane that nobody told me about.
But all of this is part of travel, the tale of it, the will they/won’t they get there, see that, be there, visit that. “We ended up at a backpacker’s pub in England - not quite what we expected, and we mislaid our tour bus in Germany,” my best friend confessed to me while we were back home.
“Aren’t buses a bit big to mislay?”
“German towns are even bigger.”
“In England, I asked this bus conductor about which bus to get on and he directed me in pure unadulterated Cockney.”
“Since when is Cockney pure and unadulterated? In Scotland, our waitress had an Irish accent and claimed she was an Irish Princess.”
Sitting with my friend, comparing tales, it was reassuring to be back in Australia and find that it was still there. Not even to my best friend did I admit that I actually got homesick despite all the adventures.
Margaret Pearce previously worked in copywriting in an advertising department. She took to writing instead of drink when raising children. She has had several articles, short stories, poetry published as well as primary and teenage novels which are currently listed on Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle and writers-exchange.com. She has completed an Arts Degree at Monash University as a mature age student.
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