Into the Vortex in Oz

We are safely on the ground, as of 6:15 am Sydney time, 1:15 pm California. Flight to SYD was on a massive, 600 passenger air-bus, fully booked. We spent almost 15 hours crammed in our seats, trying to get a little sleep, but also being fed free meals, drinks and snacks. We also watched movies, travelogues, played video games, listened to a vast array of music, and thoroughly enjoyed the world-class entertainment system, each with our own little screen! U.S. air travel is wretched by comparison.

It has been a looooooong day and night. First I blundered and had us taken to SFO ( by our intrepid Megan, with Des and Tommy along for the ride), only to pull out the itinerary and see it said SJC, YIKES! Still don't know how I managed that, but Megan swung us around and drove us right back to San Jose through pouring rain, and we made it in time. Our check-in was a scene from Laugh-in, with a blundering clerk who mixed up everything and would have sent us both someplace else at a substantial extra charge if his supe had not stepped up and rescued us. We were beginning to wonder if we had stepped into a bad vortex! And yes, apparently we did. D's suitcase did not arrive, who knows where it went.

Biggest disaster was to learn that we did not arrive on June 28 as our itinerary said, but on June 30. This means that we lost two days in Sydney, lost 2 nights in our pre-paid hotel, and have spent our first morning here trying to unravel all that. We will explore this afternoon, if we can stay awake, then must fly out to Melbourne tomorrow at the crack of dawn. But we are here, mateys. D. keeps saying, as I cry big sobs, "it's OK. Nobody got hurt". Well there's that......

Photos soon.


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Location:Sydney, Au.