A Most Excellent Adventure Part One - Goodbye, Aeroplanes, Beagles, and Hello

It felt wrong to leave R behind at the airport. My mother and I limped slowly down the line, and I cried, and couldn't look at him, and then couldn't bear not to, and then couldn't look again. But he stood there, waving, watching... we spoke silent words, kisses, thoughts, his face blurry through my tears. Always smiling. He knew of the great tearing, the great wrong that we did being apart when we should be together. I mustered up my courage to make sure the girls didn't see, so they wouldn't be upset, and soldiered on.
Just to catch a plane... There were issues with our seating assignment and little did we know they were just the beginning. They classify an infant as someone younger than two years of age. They fly free if they're on your lap. They have a kind of bed/crib thing in the bulkheads, but the weight restraint on that is about 24lbs. Needless to say Immi couldn't use it. The other issue with the bulkhead seats is that the arm rests on them don't move up and so it's hard to put toddlers there because they can't stretch out on you... so we requested no bulk head seats because I have two toddlers who couldn't make use of the cribby things. Then some bright spark with the airline does the flight manifesto and thinks "Oh, this poor lady with an "infant" doesn't have a bulk head seat, let's switch her." Fortunately, they were able to switch us on the flight over so the kids actually managed to sleep (somewhere around 3am in the morning their time, but sleep is sleep).
We landed in Australia, and my brave mother was collecting our luggage while I tried to manage two now hyperactive toddlers.

Next thing you know a beagle is sitting down next to my leg.

For those of you who don't know, if, when you are in an Australian International Airport, a beagle sits down next to you, you're in trouble with customs. These beagles are highly trained sniffer-outers, and can detect all kinds of things that are illegal to bring into the country (fruit, meat, drugs) through their nose. Anyway, attached to the beagle by a short leash was a very grumpy looking gentleman who was quite getting in the way of my line of sight as I tried to restrain the ever bouying spirits of my two girls, and who clearly didn't know I'd had about 1 hr sleep in the last 24 hrs.
"Ma'am, have you had any fruit?"
My brain was confused. Why did he care what I'd eaten on the plane? Did I look ill?
"Er, do you mean in the last 24 hrs? Amelie, SIT DOWN!"
Grumpy: "No, I mean have you had any fruit on you?
"On me? AMELIE!"
Grumpier: "In your handbag. Apples... Oranges."
I take a look at my tiny handbag bulging with kids gear and old receipts. "IMMI! Come here! Why would I put an apple in my bag?"
Grumpiest: "Ma'am, have you had any fruit IN you handbag RECENTLY!"
Me: (puzzled) No.
Beagle: Thank you, Ma'am.
Ok, it wasn't the beagle, but it should have been.
Later on I realized that at breakfast on the plane, Imogen had spilled orange juice on my leg. My handbag had been hanging right near the spot and the dog had been right all along.

We ended up getting all our gear and waiting and waiting for the strollers to come over by the oversized baggage department. Ahead of me was several members of a band, who were quite overjoyed to find their gear had made it through unscathed. We had to go through customs while Mum (who is very thorough) declared everything she thought might be remotely close to illegal (wood frames, food etc). It's better to be save than sorry because Australia is pretty strict about that stuff. I showed the customs lady the cookies I'd brought for the kids. Then she looked straight at me. "Do you have any jerky?"
There was something weird about the way she asked me. Like a drug addict looking for a fix. A jerky fix.
"No, just these cookies for the kids."
"No... beef jerky?"
"No...." she was really starting to weird me out.
She eyed me suspiciously, and looked away. And then as if she was trying to catch me out, she looked back at me really quick, "So, no beef jerky then?"
I shook my head, "Sorry, just the cookies."

So we made it through the plane flight, the baggage claim and sitting beagle, the jerky junkie at customs check, and with our trollys piled high with bags and kids and strollers, we headed out those fabulous opaque glass block walls that make you look like you're about to enter into the worlds biggest bathroom and.....

We were met by my Dad, my sister Nae, and her fiance Mike. The first thing that struck me was how much older and more mature my sister looked - and how skinny!! Mike and my Dad looked the same. They were very happy to see Amelie and meet Imogen, although both my girls were zoning.

Let me just say this, when you land in Australia there is this smell... most Australian's can't smell it... but it's very unique. It's a kind of fresh smell, like clean sunshine. My mother swears it's the Eucalyptus, and I think she's right. It's the smell of eucalyptus and sunshine, and it's one of the two scents I know as "home". (The other being cinnamon in the fall - the smell of America.)

So I again smelled that smell that told me I was back, that everything was familiar, and I felt embraced... by eucalyptus and sunshine at least. But I didn't realize how wrong I was.