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Category: Travel and Places
My big holiday: Melbourne/Alice Springs/Darwin/Kakadu/Katherine Gorge/Mataranka + more!: Friday 18 Sep - Sun 11 Oct 09
Part 4: Darwin, Katherine gorge, Mataranka and Tiwi Islands: Monday 5 Oct 09 - Sunday 11 Oct 09
Day 23: Saturday 10 Oct 09
Saturday 10 October 2009 will forever more be known as "fill in time day". While my friend JP (John-Paul) wanted to spend the day fishing, there was no way I was going to risk that when I had a plane to catch at 1am. I knew perfectly well that fishing would lead to drinking and partying, and, while that would be great, it'd also mean missing the plane, or, at a minimum, being so late that it is all in a rush and awful. I just couldn't afford to do it. So I called to cancel. If he had wanted to do that the night before, then great, but unfortunately that day was the worst possible time to do it.
We ended up doing extremely well as far as time wasting is concerned. We started off by having a late checkout, then going to the internet cafe, then having a leisurely lunch, then more internet cafe, then a walk, then dinner, then we went to this Vietnamese family, where I met the girl who the mother briefly suggested was single and she was anxious to marry off, maybe to me. She is 32 it seems, too old by her reckoning and should be married already. This was my first time meeting her and she seemed nice enough, was quite pretty and of course, as do most Vietnamese, looked very young, maybe 22 or 23 or so. They look young their whole lives then they die and you think that they are 40 but really they are 90. Asians in general are like this, because of the skin I guess (even though they often go grey early), but Vietnamese are one of the worst offenders (or best, I guess). Some 25 year olds can look like teenagers or even 11 or 12 year olds. You look at 25 year old men and wonder why they have a moustache at 11.
This was very convenient and really quite perfect. In many ways we should have gone there a bit earlier, as early as 2pm or so. Just the same, Mao's Last Dancer was great and I wonder how happy they would have been had we been there for that long. Maybe not so friendly. They even drove us to the airport, which was great.
Day 24: Sunday 11 Oct 09
I am going to start this with entering the airport, even though technically that was Saturday night, as it is all in a row. There is a bit of a story there.
On my Dad's suggestion, for the first time ever I did a web check in for both my Jetstar flight from Darwin to Adelaide (I booked it on Friday afternoon) then on my Qantas flight from Adelaide to Melbourne (I booked it on Saturday morning). I wasn't able to check in my Melbourne to Burnie REX flight as they don't do that, although I can happily report that I got the best seat on the plane - window seat at the emergency exit - enormous leg room there.
Jetstar somehow forgot that I had checked in. I had seat 11A, a window seat, while my dad had seat 11C, an aisle seat. Maybe because we both had the same name but were on separate bookings or maybe because their system went down 12 hours later, somehow they forgot me. They told me that I wasn't booked in. Yet I had actually printed out my booking from the internet cafe (costing me 30 cents too!) as proof. They then allocated me a new seat at 10D. I said to them "no no that is an aisle. I'd like a window so I can sleep". They told me that 10D, 10E and 10F were all vacant so all was good. They then reallocated my Dad, even though he was happy with 11C, to 10E, which was the dreaded middle seat. They told us both that there was nobody in row 10 so we could mix and match as we liked, to compensate.
When we got to put our luggage through, they said how dumb their other staff member was, because I *was* booked in at 11A. They had just forgotten to print out my ticket. Maybe because my dad and me have the same last name (different first names, though - not even similar) and were on separate bookings, they thought maybe that only 1 was real. Maybe because we booked at the exact same time, from an internet cafe which would have come out as the same IP address. Whatever the reason, they messed up. We asked to go back to 11A and 11C but they refused.
On the plane, I was more than a little annoyed to see someone sitting happily in 10F, supposedly the vacant window seat that was meant to be mine really. I asked her what the deal was and she said that she had been given 5C but hadn't printed it out and they had reallocated her seat too. My Dad and I swapped so that I got the middle seat and then 5C was vacant as was 11A and 11C. The guy in 11B was so happy that he had nobody either side and promptly fell fast asleep in luxury.
Now, if it was me going to sit in 11A (or 11C), I would have shaken the 11B guy and woken him up, offering him the window seat and extra leg room in exchange for me sitting in the aisle with leg room too. But my dad insisted on doing it by the book, via the attendants, who got confused, annoyed, and frustrated, then did absolutely nothing, despite promises and basically ignored him. Eventually, after about an hour, he was allowed to move, but then didn't have the heart to wake the guy up (who was asian and may not have spoken English too well - hard to say though as he was fast asleep!). I then switched with the girl sitting next to me so that she got the aisle that she wanted and I got the window seat that I wanted and we had a gap. It was quite a good flight.
My other flights have been fine, although it was a bit of a rush in Adelaide due to us getting in so late due to this mess up. I have to wonder how they messed up this badly. Maybe it was no big deal though. Maybe, if my dad had had a bit more guts, he could have simply nudged the guy to move, then got there, had a gap and been happy.
12:04 AM
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