Is This The Last Goodbye? No Way!
Wow. I knew today was going to be hard. And it was. But I am proud of us all. We knew we were going to cry. A lot. And we did, but we really kept the cheery denial thing going until the very end! Our lovely Kristen has flown the coop (cluck! cluck!) , but hopefully not for too long. Kristen and I were up late last night and up early today. We went to the airport with Jorge and Ray. We had random conversations in the car on the way to distract us from getting teary.
Thursday Night - Farewell Drinks
Thank you so much to Chad for helping organise the 'do at the Stock Exchange Hotel, which is a very lovely + comfy place, I must say. I only just remembered that I ended up there after my b-day dinner last year while on the way there on Thursday. Too funny. HUGE thanks to Chad, Fidelma, Shay, Sal, Damian, Ruth, Andrea, Gavin, Kuan, Rocky & Co. and Jorge and Ray for coming. You guys rock! We had a very fun night and good chats and I might as well plug The Sydney Writer's Festival again for good measure! (p.s. Fidelma, if they ever have a suitable competition again, please enter your story - it's a winner! ;)

Friday Night - Farewell Dinner We did dinner at our usual special spot - Wolfies @ the Rocks, Waterfront. Yes, I ordered the kangaroo there again. I can't help it. It tastes just like steak and I must be iron deficient because I've had more red meat this week than I've had in the last 6 months! Dinner was excellent but I nearly smacked our waiter when he came over and asked loudly, "So who's birthday is it?" I turned and gave him a Look. I smiled and said quickly, "Oh, no, it's no one's birthday - this is a farewell dinner, can we order our drinks now, thanks!" Of course the reason why he thought it was a birthday was because I sneaked in to the kitchen and handed him a cake we'd gotten for Kristen. A surprise cake. I didn't want this little twerp to ruin the surprise. I excused myself to 'the loo' later on and found him in the kitchen and said, "Hi, just to re-cap, it's the cute blonde at the table who's leaving the country and she doesn't know about the cake, it's a surprise. He grabbed my hands and winked madly at me and said "Okay, I understand, we'll be very discreet!" The chef came over to me and said they'd stick some sparklers in the cake. Excellent! So I told him, "The code will be, 'Can we see the dessert menus please?' and that's the signal to bring out the cake!" They agreed. Phew. It all went to plan - yay! And we even made sure Kristen was sitting with her back to the kitchen, so she didn't see it coming. Yay again - the tiramisu cake with the sparklers went off just as we'd hoped. We ended the night by walking around circular quay, soaking in the gorgeous harbour views. God, this city is beautiful. I think I take it for granted sometimes, so it's good to remind myself of that.

Today - Liftoff
We just love trying to plan surprises at last minute. While poor Kristen was madly packing this morning, I excused myself to go purchase a re-charge card for my phone. Heh heh heh. Well, not really. Jorge, Ray, and I were planning an Aussie care package for Kristen, so we had to organise all our goodies. The care package included Australian jokes, the Homebake 2001 CD, Minties, Cherry Ripe, Picnic Bar, Golden Rough, multiple Cadbury chocolate delights, Dolly Magazine (ha!), a koala-photo filled address book, tasmanian devil stickers, panadeine (you can't get it in the states!), postcards, cards. I wanted to stick in Tim Tams, but I knew Kristen would by herself some for the plane, and she did! ;-)

We were going through the motions and all sitting around this little airport cafe pretending that Kristen wasn't just about to hop on a plane and fly 11,000 miles away. We knew one tear would create group waterworks. Finally it was time to head towards Kristen's gate. She took some video of all of us hugging and was about to take some pics when Jorge took a gander at the TV screens to see a "Final call" notice next to Kristen's flight number. WTF? It was still over an hour until her flight and they were doing a final boarding call? CRAP! And so that's when the crying began. Panic set in. One second we were all hugging calmly then we get the 'ohmygod, it's the final call' notice and the bawling began. I rarely rarely cry in public, but I just didn't care. Hugs, tears, more hugs, more tears. We just didn't want to let the poor girl go. And then we all hugged and cried, the three of us, as we watched Kristen disappear in the corridor to her gate. :( Right before we said goodbye, we whipped out the Aussie care package and told Kristen to wait until she was in the air until she opened it. I wanted to put some sweet chilli sauce, vegemite, and a stubby of VB in there, for kicks, but franky, there's just no care package big enough to fit all the stuff we'd have liked to stick in there.

I HATE goodbyes! Anyway, we've decided this is not 'goodbye,' just a 'see you soon' sort of thing. I know what it's like to be missing people on the other side of the world, no matter where you are. It's so tough. But I certainly have no regrets about caring about people all over the globe.