The flight back home was not as miserable as I had anticipated. I ended up buying a new ticket, all Virgin, instead of using my Hawaiian Airlines credit. With the ticket to the Philippines and the $200 fee to simply use my credit, the new ticket ended up being slightly more expensive than the Hawaiian Airlines ticket, after I jumped through all of their hoops. The flight from Melbourne to LA was $575 and I bought a separate Virgin flight from LA to SF for $70 (which was actually $100 after I found out I had to pay for my two checked bags).

But enough of that airline bullshit; the fact of the matter is I got back home. I got through customs quick enough in LA to hop on an earlier flight to SF. I had just barely made the earlier flight that I didn’t have time to call my brother and let him know. (My phone is still deactivated, that’s a whole’nother story.) I figured that I would just BART to Civic Center and my brother could pick me up from there. And he did. I called him from SFO and told him I’d rather ride BART (for nostalgia’s sake) than wait at the airport for him to pick me up.

Pat picked me up in front of the Civic Center Burger King and took me back to his place, which is soon to be my place. He’s leaving on his own trip and I’m moving into his apartment. He’s slowly been moving his stuff into our storage unit (mom’s garage) and bringing my stuff back. He told me that Kelly was going to be coming over later to grab a few beers. I thought about calling some more people, but my phone was still deactivated and figured I’d just wait until Kelly got here to do some recruiting. Kelly arrived and we all went downstairs. I was looking for Kelly’s car and he was walking up to the passenger side of a bus that was idling in front of the building. “Let’s check this out,” he said. “What on earth are you doing?” I was thinking. “Come on,” he encouraged. As I followed him I started to realize the surprise. Inside the bus were a lot of people that I’ve been longing to see and missing for the past 10 months. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I went around saying all my hellos. I guess the plan was to pick me up in the airport in that bus and that I had ruined it by coming home early. I contended that I didn’t ruin anything; I was just as surprised and at least I got to take a shower and put on clothes that weren’t 8 months worn.

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Australia, Australia, Australia. It’s good to be in Australia. I can’t believe I’m actually here. It’s the final destination on my journey after 4 and a half months of living on a boat and 10 months away from home. I would have liked to spend more time here but responsibility calls and I need to get back into the swing of a normal life.

I decided to fly from Brisbane to Melbourne; it just made more sense. Beacho convinced me that I wouldn’t be missing much by traveling over land and this way I’d get to see more of Melbourne. Sydney is expensive, he said. I’m staying at his place on Separation Street, in the Northcote neighborhood, with his bandmates and his girlfriend. I parted with Mike and Vick on Island Buoy and left them to transport the boat from Brisbane down to the Gold Coast. We spent our last day together cleaning the boat from bow to stern. Mike got a working visa is going to look for employment in Oz before he gets on another boat heading west. Vick’s plan is to stay with his dad around Brisbane and eventually return to South Africa.

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