Getting "Down Under"

Well, this was quite an interesting trip.

We left Mom and Dad's house about 2pm on Friday afternoon to go to DFW airport, and we arrived in Sydney about 25 hours later. THAT is one long time of continuous travel. Then we had to wait another 6 or so hours to check into the hotel. Needless to say we are weary!

When we got to DFW airport, we found that we had no tickets. Apparently Cliff's assistant forgot to finis the transaction by paying for the tickets (in her defense, there was some confusion and complication in making the arrangements). Luckily we had plenty of time, and they had the reservation. All we had to do was pay and we were on our way.

Bonus for the domestic flights: upgrades to first class from DFW to Houston and Houston to LAX.

We called the girls from the Houson airport after our first quick leg of the journey. We figured that would be our last opportunity to talk to them stateside. So far, so good.

The flight to LAX was neat. Because it was dark, the lights in the little mountain towns looked like veins of gold sparkling in the darkness. Then as we got closer to LA (and lower to the ground) the lights overpowered everything else.

At LAX we changed to Quantas airlines. No upgrades. And we ran into a few people that Cliff knew who were also going to this conference in Sydney.

The flight was soooooo long! And I was stuck in a middle seat between Cliff and a stranger for about 17 hours! I slept about 5 hours of that, watched movies, ate the meals that were served, and got so stiff! I was really glad to get out of the plane!

We shared our flight with the LA Galaxy soccer team. No, ladies, Beckham was not flying with the team. He arrived separately by private plane.

Customs went smoothly, and we arrived at our hotel around 10am local time on Sunday morning. As we could not check in until 2pm, we stowed our bags and walked around Darling Harbor. The convention center is right across the street, as is a shopping mall, park, and several attractions.

We spent the morning having breakfast (again) and touring the Maritime Museum. The museum captures the seafaring history of Australia and is quite interesting.

As we came out of the museum, Cliff got a voicemail from a coworker also here who said that our hotel had been changed. So we went back to the original hotel to get our bags and trouped up to the new hotel, who informed us that we had no reservation. Not only that, but there were no reservations to be had in the area. By this time, we were both quite tired and road weary and in no mood for this hassel. Somehow it all worked out, though. The hotel staff worked hard to find us a room, and in just a few minutes we walked into our extremely small but adequate room.

After a short rest (you DON'T want to sleep before nighttime) we headed out to an opening reception at the Powerhouse Museum. We stayed a couple of hours and then returned to the hotel to get some sleep.