What do ballgowns, books and melted suitcase wheels have in common?

It started when we arrived in Sydney Friday morning and made the (very dumb) decision to drag our bags half an hour through the city.
I will avoid paying for a taxi or Uber against all odds. I’m not sure I should admit this, but I even took public transportation home from my wedding.

Anyway, we arrived at our hotel all sweaty. Took a shower. Then went out to meet up with a gorgeous fellow reader from America who we connected with through Facebook.
We got back late and set our alarms for six in the morning.
Why so early?
Because we could check in to the event early and my friend was going to walk 20 minutes there in a wedding dress!
Yes, you heard right.
A wedding dress.

So we dragged our sleepy selves out of bed in the morning and I ate about 20 malteses for breakfast because I’m an adult who gets to make her own bad decisions …

By 7:30 I was full of chocolate and we were walking along King Street Wharf in our dresses and glitter.

Looking like a bride (my friend) and her bridesmaid (that was me), we got a fair few looks. One guy stopped and yelled out, “It’s not too late.”

But nothing could stop us from getting to Babe. Not even the hot Australian sun baking our skin red.

It was worth it!

We had so much fun getting signatures from our favourite authors, meeting other readers/authors in the lines and taking photos with the props. It was truly a fantasy wonderland.
But we had one dilemma.

This was our first time going to a signing event; we hadn’t planned for how heavy all the books we bought would be. And we ended up with waaaaay more than we pre-ordered.

It wasn’t long before we could barely carry the tote bags, they were so heavy. We knew we wouldn’t be able to carry them all back to our hotel.

My friend suggested Uber. But being as stubborn and insane as I am, I decided I would walk back to the hotel with some of our books, and bring back an empty suitcase for the rest.
Which I did. In the scoring hot sun. In a silk blue dress.
Did I mention I make terrible decisions sometimes?

Anyway, somehow I made it back to the signing event with an empty suitcase for the rest of our books. And we began the 20-minute walk back to our hotel.
All good, right?
Wrong.

About ten minutes in, I heard a clunk.
The suitcase wheel had melted from the heat and friction. We had nearly 47 books in that suitcase! And we had to drag it missing one wheel the rest of the way.
So that is what Ballgowns, books and melted suitcase wheels have in common.

The next day we took an Uber to the station.