Friday, July 23rd: Across the Pacific once again

Confirmation

It's 10AM and I've been laying awake for a while now, wanting to get official confirmation on Blandine's pregnancy, but she's snoozing away. Sure, we had planned to think about kids and pregnancy during this trip, but at the end of our trip, after the camp in Cambodia! We'll be dealing with kids who spend their days on a dump site, so hygiene will be a serious concern. Whatever happens, we'll have to accept it, I guess, it's just not the most comforting feeling. I get up and get ready, not because I know where I want to go, moreso because my dearest girlfriend never likes to be the first one out of bed. Once I'll have my clothes on, she'll ask me "Where are you going?" and I'll say "I'm hungry, I want to eat breakfast", and then she may say "Oh wait for me" or "OK, I'll join you in the breakfast room in 10 minutes", or "Can you bring me a croissant and some juice, please?". And then she'll take the pregnancy test again and we'll know for sure which way the cookie crumbles. She's opted for neither this morning. Instead she says "Let's do the test first". Great! That's what I wanted to hear anyway.

This time around the stick doesn't even take 15 seconds to colour the bluest of blues. It's for real, I'm soooo.ffff...inally gonna be a daddy. My eyes can't meet Blandine's at the moment. Tears of joy are welling up, but come on, we're so not going to start a parental crying session now, right? The tears surface anyway.

Now what? It's 10:45AM, we've got this pregnancy project on our hands and not even the first clue how to go about it. We need to get informed! The program for the remainder of our time in Sydney quickly becomes clear:

1. Eat breakfast on the go.
2. Check out.
3. Find the nearest bookstore.
4. Buy the Idiot's guide to pregnancy.
5. Take the 12:30 shuttle bus to the airport. 

On the way back from the bookstore (Idiot's Guide and 2 other related books in hand) we're forced to hop into a taxi to make it back in time for the shuttle bus. We arrive with two minutes to spare, our timing couldn't be better (for once). We're definitely doing better than these two young Dutch backpacker girls, who within minutes go beg the shuttle bus driver to stop in front of a downtown pub, as one of them realises that she's lost her mobile phone. The driver hesitates, then stops and gives her 30 seconds to be back. She jumps back in the bus, panting, but happy that her most important means of communication with her family back home is back in her hands.

Checking out the airport
We check in, grab an overpriced burger, then head to the gate. The flight to Bangkok is going to be long, with lots of time to read up on pregnancy and parenting. And we'll finally be able to get the repair of our netbook going. Writing notes on paper has its charm, but we risk having them just on paper forever, rather than being able to share them.

Arrival In Bangkok
We arrive around 11PM, exhausted. We pick up our backpacks and walk half-dazed through the sliding doors of the air-conditioned airport...SMACK! into a wall of hot, muggy night air. Yes baby, the summer part of our trip has finally started. A courtesy shuttle takes us to "Queen's Garden Resort", a cheap airport hotel (1150 BAHT = roughly EUR 25) that receives good reviews on the internet. At this price a travelling professional ought to wonder how much garden to expect, but at this point the garden could be non-existent, all I care about is a decent bed in a resort without any local queens in it. Blandine settles in the room while I take care of the check-in formalities. Our room is perfect: aircon has cooled the sheets of an immaculately made up bed. Blandine's just brushed her teeth as I walk in. She's happy to plop into the bed and assume sleeping position as I chuck my backpack into a corner. I set the alarm and as I hit the sheets, I wonder whether Thai people count sheep to fall asleep. I flip on the TV and the first international news in weeks reflects on my retina. What was I thinking?? I can't even concentrate for 30 seconds before "BANG": lady sleep hits me upside the head with a shovel of heavy-duty drowsiness.