Oopsy

How did this happen? I only took off a few days, and now I'm a deadline nightmare.

The tour guide had dropped me off at my Hobart hostel on Monday night. I'd immediately raced out for Thai food and a walk around the harbor at Salamanca before falling asleep early. On Tuesday, I'd done laundry, gotten my hair roots colored (well done, Anarchy Hair in Hobart!), gone to the post office, sought out a replacement for my ten-year-old mini Mag-lite which I'd somehow misplaced between Bali and Perth, and eaten more Thai food. On Wednesday, I'd caught the Virgin Blue flight from Hobart to Sydney, hurried over to King's Cross to my budget hotel, and met my former near-in-laws for a dinner cruise around Sydney Harbor.

On Thursday, I met Amanda and D early—they'd flown from Seattle to Sydney with my Marquesas freighter cruise ticket. I'd handed off my camping gear to them for a trip to the Blue Mountains.

We wandered about Sydney in the rain, took the Manly ferry, got pedicures (D sat that one out), met my old pal Sean for dinner, and then I raced off to see Cate Blanchett perform in a completely weird German play, before getting lost trying to find my way out of The Rocks area of Sydney.

And then today, I woke up to realize that I'm ridiculously far behind on my personal work, my paying job, my Wanderlust blog, and all the red tape I have to get through today, the last weekday before I find myself isolated on remote Pacific islands for a month.

I threw away the Harry Potter exhibit ticket I'd pre-booked for ten this morning and hunkered down.

I like getting a paycheck on the road. The actual work part, unfortunately, is extraordinarily difficult to balance with the travel part.