The Long Journey (or, "How I lost Bastille Day, and other boring tales") July 13-15

So after spending all day Sunday nervously packing, I made it to the airport around 4:30 for a 6:50 flight. Nothing too eventful here; I met the girls, we said our goodbyes, got through security and waited to board.  And waited. And waited some more, as unfortunately, our flight was delayed.  We weren’t too worried, since we had three full hours for our connection in Sydney.  We finally left New York somewhere around 8:30, and enjoyed a comfortable flight until our stop in LA. Again, uneventful and boring – we stepped off the plane, waited two hours for refueling and crew change, and reboarded the plane for the final 14 hours into Sydney.

Fourteen hours is a long time to be in the air, especially after a five hour flight.  I’m not a sleeper when I’m on land, I hadn’t been able to nod off at all on the first leg of the flight, and unfortunately sleep remained elusive for the journey to Sydney. I did try drinking wine – after my first glass the flight attendant asked if I wanted another, and I suppose my reply was very eager because she winked and handed me two more bottles.  The wine didn’t help me sleep, but it certainly made the journey more pleasant.  I read that the key to surviving long flights is in varying entertainment – and it absolutely worked for me.  I killed the hours by watching two excellent movies (The Book Thief and The Godfather), eight episodes of Modern Family (thank you Calvin McEvoy for turning me on to that show), several episodes of Scandal and The Blacklist, and then finally, we landed in Sydney.

Though we had gotten on the plane on Sunday, when we got off the plane it was Tuesday.  Sadly, this meant we had missed Bastille Day, which is a very important holiday for my people.  Sigh.  Moving on; because we were making the connection on foreign soil, our luggage had to be rechecked.  The time it took us to pick up our bags at baggage claim and then get to the terminal cost us our connection, and so unfortunately our long journey got a bit longer. 

On a fun note, as we were taking our carry ons through security, one of their security agents working the checkpoint overheard me talking, and asked where in the States I was from.  I told him, and he replied by asking if I’d heard of Bayside, Queens?  I couldn't believe it - so of course I laughed and told him that’s where I’m from – and he went on to say he’d visited NY a few years back and that he’d stayed with a friend of his there.  He asked if I knew any of the bars across from the train station, and we chatted a bit about Monahan’s and Sullivan’s and he remarked about how friendly everyone was to him.  I couldn’t believe it when he next asked me if I knew Freeport, where they went fishing off his friends boat and enjoyed the bars on the Nautical Mile - at this point you could have knocked me over with a feather.  Unreal! We chatted some more, and laughed about what a small world it was, and despite not having slept in days, I was suddenly in a great mood.  What an awesome welcome to Australia, and I hope, a good omen for things to come. 

Not much more to tell about the journey; we finally landed in Brisbane, and the host families were waiting for us with signs as we stepped off the plane.  Such lovely people, very friendly, and I knew the girls would be just fine. 

By the time I got to the hotel, it was 4:30pm Australia time on Tuesday – a full 36 hours had passed since I’d walked out of the house with my suitcases.  Exhausted doesn’t begin to describe how I felt.  The hotel itself is lovely – I have a small one bedroom apartment on the 32^nd floor with views from all the rooms of the river, but I didn’t spend much time admiring the view.  I’ve got 17 more nights to do that J  Instead, I pulled the blinds and settled into bed, feeling exhausted, but exhilarated.  Holy shneikes.  I’m in Australia.