Well, That Was An Expensive Surprise!

Well… It’s the half term holidays coming up and we found ourselves asking “what should we do”?

It was a pointless question as we both knew what we wanted to do. That was to go and see our family and get a little of the Brisbane heat! Well, not quite, it was mid 20’s so not exactly tropical, but warmer than the cold Canberrean 3-degree mornings.

We agreed that we would go to Brisbane and surprise mum and dad. It would be a great opportunity to visit too as Ahmed’s sister was due to give birth the week we visited.

We attempted to book cheap tickets with Tiger Air but this time, the stories about this maverick airline got to us and we decided to book with Virgin (our first time).

Ahmed and J Boy came with me to Bathurst for two nights, I was there for work and it fell into place perfectly. We got to spend some quality time together and I didn’t have to be in the hotel alone.

Ahmed entertained J Boy for a couple of days and from the stories they told me, had a ball together. They went ice skating, to a fossil museum and to the cinema.

On Wednesday 10 July, we drove from Bathurst to Sydney, which we thought would be cost effective. That was until we saw the prices for the car parking in Sydney.

We miscalculated the time and left Bathurst at 9:30am thinking it took 2 hours to drive to Sydney. It actually took 3 hours and the last 15 minutes were really tense and we watched the clock tick closer to our departure time.

On route, we listened to the podcast “Who The Hell is hamish”. It was a good opportunity to really get into a podcast and discuss some of the twists and turns of the story.

Did you make it to the airport in time I hear you ask…. well, just! We made it there by 1:15 and we planned to get there by 12:30. So we put on our backpacks and ran from the car park to terminal 2 (domestic departures).

(AJ) We came into Terminal 2 looking for parking; Ruth saw a bridge and panicked and told me to turn right into Terminal 3 parking.

(RJ) It wasn’t clear from the parking tariffs whether we could stay overnight, so we went around again and came back into T2. This time WE didn’t panic and found the “right parking”… well at $51 per day, some might say it was not “the right parking” as it was going to cost us around $250 on top of the $1,500 for the tickets. But I would spend double that to make sure that we see family regularly and make up for all the years we were thousands of miles away just for the look on my mother-in-law’s face when she saw J Boy come around the corner and shouting “Hello Grandma!”. Priceless!

The flight was quick and comfortable, J Boy bagged the window seat, Ahmed in the middle and I had the pleasure of the isle seat. I spent the hour listening to the “Who the hell is Hamish” podcast (don’t tell Ahmed as we had agreed it was our entertainment for the drive from Sydney to Canberra on Sunday).

Our brother in law and “cousin” picked us up from the airport and got us back to the house safe and sound. After the hellos, hugs and smiles we headed out with Alice (Ahmed’s little sister), to get some vegan food for our stay and to get some food as it was 5.30pm and we had not eaten since 8.00am at the hotel in Bathurst.

The evening was spent talking about the Jalloh Dynasty and some big plans we have as a family. That’s all I’m saying for now… lol. Let’s just say there are some big building/construction work on the horizon. Jallohs, we really are world changers!

One of the first stops this trip was the barber shop to get the boys their much needed “shape up”… we are yet to find a good barbers in Canberra that can handle the Jalloh family curls.

CULTURE CUTS; Moorooka, Brisbane, QLD

Thank you for reading this far and for keeping up with the Jalloh family.

We really appreciate your support.

Peace, Love and Happiness.

The Jalloh family

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Twitter: @justJallOZ