There is one more story I would like to add to the world trip. Christy's bag arrived to our doorstep this evening, after a 38 day absence. Thirty-eight days ago is a long time back, especially if you are say, traveling around the world with all your possessions on your back. I was beginning to think that it was gone like Elvis, yet somehow the bag came back from the dead.

Back when we were waiting in the check-in queue in Heathrow, there was something going on with the baggage system, something slowing everything down. Come to find out in Paris that there was a strike going on with the baggage handlers. They lost one third of our flight's luggage, and somehow, everyone on the flight seemed to lose one of piece of luggage. My two bags got through, but Christy's was stuck with the all other lost bags in Heathrow, in terminal four.

We had hopes that it would show up in Paris the next day. No such luck. Or maybe it would show up before Christmas, so that she could give people gifts. No such luck. We hoped that they would at least send us word of any word of progress when we were in New Zealand. No such luck. And we hoped that it would greet us when we got back here to Sydney. No such luck, at least till today. I think that it was thanks to our wonderful Flight Centre travel consultant, Verity, that the bag came back. Squeaky wheel perhaps, that or the strike finally got resolved. Maybe a bit of both.

It is not fun to lose your bag when you are in the middle of a trip. I can now say I have seen the results, and they are not pretty. Christy is a rock star and dealt with the loss better than the usual person. What do you do when you find yourself in a wintery Paris with no clothes other than what you have on your back? All the gifts from foreign lands, how do you replace them? I still wonder about one woman, a diabetic, had her medicine in her bag. What are we to do if to comply to safety regulations—no liquids for carry-on if you are flying in the EU—if the airlines somehow make baggage transport an optional activity?

I have many bad things I can say about India, but they sure as hell would not lose my bag, nor would the baggage handlers decide to rise up and stick it to the man by enacting a strike that nobody has heard of nor will now speak about. I suppose I may support your latest struggle to get paid a living wage, but that doesn't mean I like you for sticking it to us while you are sticking it to the man.

But all is well that ends well, by in large. I'm just happy that the bag is no longer fated to mold away in London for the rest of its years.