Two Drifters

^The Grand Canal, Venice I survived the ASTW event (everyone was very welcoming!) and, a couple of days later, Andrew and I flew to Milan via Singapore. Given that we do not have the constraints of work or school terms any more, we decided to break the journey and transit in Singapore. We thought that meant not leaving our Singapore airport hotel but there were actually two, different, free tours we could choose from which both had different Singapore sightseeing opportunities. It sounded like a great idea to me but also to a few others as the tours were booked out! The hotel worked well – we arrived in Singapore late so went straight to bed then wandered around the airport for a while in the morning and spent the rest of the day at the hotel (outdoor) pool. We had rented the hotel room for the 23 odd hours we were there so we showered and flew to Milan late that night. Our cases were checked through from Melbourne direct to Milan so we did have to plan what we took with us in our day ...

June started off with a funeral and by weddings. The funeral was for the father of one of my long time friends. The man who died was 87 and in poor health but I was fascinated to hear the story of him packing his suitcase at 17 and coming to Melbourne from Italy to live with his older brother. I relayed this to my Mum and she reminded me that she, too, had done this at 17.  Mum and her older sister came from Malta to Melbourne to pave the way for the rest of her family – her parents and four other siblings. She and her sister flew (never having been on a plane before) and the rest of the family followed a few months later by ship. The plane trip took about 45 hours and there were various stops - Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Karachi, Singapore, Sydney and, finally, Melbourne. The trip on the ship took 4 weeks and my grandmother was apparently seasick the entire voyage.  My Dad is also a migrant but from Ireland. He moved to Dublin as a teenager and then London where he saw an ad for the...