How I Met My Tour Guide

Good morning!!  In just one week from today I envision myself buzzing around the house frenetically trying to assure that I do not forget to pack every little essential (and probably many nonessential) items for my trip.  Who am I trying to kid...my mind is already racing faster than a gerbil running in a wheel and I am not expecting it to shut down until total exhaustion reaches sometime mid flight over the Pacific Ocean.

But how did this all start?  This trip started years and years ago partly as a joke between two classmates about how we were going to go 'Down Under' and fence out the kangaroos and grew into a fanciful dream that is shortly going to become reality.

Six years ago I was working at an international company in their marketing division...one of the many 'cogs' working on one of many loyalty marketing programs they had and I hated that program with all my heart.  It was a fiercely manual and time consuming program that went against all the company's standards for a loyalty program and I had somehow 'drawn' the lucky number of being assigned to manage one client of that program.  

Visions of a closed door meeting and a coin toss come to mind on how it was decided to obtain this loyalty program and after months of pain yet another coin toss to decide to expand and add Australia.  Expansion meant that yet another 'lucky' person would need some training and as the IT & marketing parts were in North America Natalie traveled here to learn the essentials of the program. Little did I know that that dastardly program I hated with all my might would be the impetus behind a resurrection of a dream dreamt long ago. 

In one's lifetime many people come and go.  Nothing prophetic there but once in a while you meet someone that you hit it off with from the get go and that's what happened when I met Natalie and despite the vast distances between where we each live we have been able to grow a great friendship via emails... kind of a modern day penpal or do we now call it a 'keyboard pal?'  

Anyways...as this friendship grew along came an invite to visit and, after several years of wishing, hoping and trying it's gonna happen and who could ask for anything better than having a native of Australia to be your personal tour guide and touring we are going to be doing!

I land in Melbourne on Saturday the 19th at 9:55 a.m. their time and will (must) hit the ground running!!  On the itinerary for the first week is two days in the Dandenong Mountains (Saturday afternoon and Friday).  Sunday we are going to Marysville with some of Natalie's friends, into the inner city of Melbourne on Monday and bright and early on Tuesday morning we fly to Sydney for three days and two nights of exploring the Sydney Harbor, Bondi Beach and an all day tour up into the Blue Mountains. 

Whew!!  ...and that's just the first week!  At least being on a personal tour if the pace becomes too frenetic we can back off a bit with the exception of the planned trip to Sydney and another flight to another part of the country during the second week. 

But I'm gonna save the second week itinerary until tomorrow.  Time to end this blog for the day as it has become a novella of sorts and I really must get back to checking those lists I've made, practice packing and changing my mind until next Thursday comes and I've got just the essentials packed.

Really??  Only the essentials??  Who am I trying to kid??!!