The most natural thing to do at 6am on a Monday morning is to sit before a whirring laptop and try to wrestle down to earth some of the thoughts and emotions that are whizzing around above our heads - and that's only after watching Australia go down to Brazil a few hours ago in a game where the scoreline defied the efforts and chances the boys from Oz showed us!
However we're comforted by the fact that scores of Aussies on the GMT+10 side of the world are doing the same thing at this moment, trying to work out whether to stay awake through the day or grab some sneaky shut-eye to make the day more sensical (hopefully when the boss isn't looking - or even off having a nap themself!).
Although Australia didn't win on points, Maria and I were driving home after the game on a record green-wave run along the Pacific Highway, inspired by the commitment and teamplay of the Socceroos that we witnessed during 93 heart-stopping, no -palpitating minutes of play; we were so proud of the way that the team was up against some serious odds, yet they never slowed to let the odds dictate their play. And not even the Oscar Award-worthy injury acting of the Brazilians dampened the aussies' spirits!
It's with this same sense of excited pride and confidence that we head off today on a world cup of our own to explore some of this fascinating world (armed with enough green and gold to warrant some interest by the fashion police!) and together as a team we know that we're going away on an adventure with some pretty good odds in our favour - even with the odd obstacle or yellow card.
It's been a craaaazy few final hours, with a farewell party on Saturday night which ended up in the bowels of the Imperial Hotel in the wee hours (no puns intended - honest!), a sign that a good night out was had by many! We had an absolute ball, and will be talking about that night for a very long time.
After banking a few hours of sleep Maria and I decided that we'd head to the Enmore Theatre that night with Maria's family and Alli to watch Australia play Brazil in the World Cup. With the game starting at 2am, we got there early to see Japan tie with Croatia, a good result fpr the Socceroos. What a way to spend our final night before heading off overseas - not to mention all the packing that we still had to do (arrrrgh!).
So we've pushed on to the morning without any sleep and I'd be very surprised if I'm not typing in some kind of japanese/arabic hybrid by now. I'm sure it'll help us with the 32 or so hours of travel coming our way.
While we make our way to Germany to see Australia play Croatia in what's looking like a must-draw or -win game for oz, help us to get the spirit going by letting us know of your proudest 'Aussie' moment.
Until then take care and keep in touch. We'll miss you all, but look forward to hearing all your stories.
Brett and Maria xx
