Another Tiny Airport

At Coolangatta - Gold Coast airport waiting for my plane to arrive to take me back to Sydney in the next hour.  Unfortunately, it seems the flight is going to be a bit delayed, as the plane has not arrive from Sydney yet.

After I wrote last we took morning tea and then went into the final sessions of papers.  The one I attended was a bit of a different format than any of the others had been, with two full papers presented, supplemented by the reading of a few abstracts in the absence of the authors, followed by a discussion.  The two papers were:

1)      The Economy of Constructing and Maintaining Contemporary Domestic Fale in Tonga – given by C. 'Ilaiu Talei (University of Queensland)

 

2)      Integrating Transactional People-Environment Studies into Architectural Anthropology: A Case for Useful Theory Building – given by P. Memmott (University of Queensland)

 

When the final paper sessions concluded, we gathered in the courtyard for a barbeque - snags on white bread, ginger beer, and xxxx.  We socialized and those who were still around (at least fifty of us) went back for up for closing discussion - a chat about the relevancy and issues facing architectural history education.  I chimed in, adding the student perspective of things, which seemed to have been taken pretty well.  We wrapped up at 2:30, said goodbyes, and then a few of us settled in for a quick afternoon cuppa before leaving.  I went to catch a bus to get to the airport.  The 3:12 showed up at 3:30 and immediately got stuck in the most horrendous traffic.  It was almost 4:30 before I was able to transfer to the second bus of the journey - in that time I could have gotten the train to Brisbane airport (live and learn).

The flight has been announced to be boarding and leaving half an hour behind schedule, so I am going to go grab some dinner at the Asian noodle bar.  Hopefully I will be into Sydney by 9:00.