Up Up and Away

After arriving in Perth, I must say that our entire three day travel marathon went off without a hitch! Aside from a few tears and a sore bum we could not have asked for smoother travel.

It didn’t quite start that smoothly. Larry had to work on Wednesday, the day we were set to check into the Marriott at the Tampa airport. We still had the final bit of cleaning out to finish. We ended up throwing all of our luggage plug about 3 grocery bags full of other assorted items into our rental car and headed to the airport. After errands at the bank, Brighthouse and the post office, we didn’t actually settle into the room until 9PM. We ordered room service, popped open our celebratory bottle of Vueve Cliquot and set to packing.

The following morning, Larry went downstairs to fetch a Smarte Cart and brought it back to the room. We each had 2 bags to check and 2 carry on bags. We loaded up the Smarte Cart and went to push it out the door of our hotel room, but were dismayed to find that it was too wide to fit! We tried pushing, wiggling and shimmying, but finally we had to unload it, drag all the bags into the hallway and re-load it. I got a bit sentimental as we took off over Tampa and banked right to fly over the beaches. This was just the beginning.

We collected our bags at LAX and managed to get on the shuttle to our hotel where we would spend the day, get a meal, and freshen up before the longest leg of our travels: the flight to Sydney. I had planned to spend some time resting at the pool, soaking up the California sunshine, but what met us in Los Angeles was 65 degrees and cloudy. There was no way I was putting on a bathing suit in 65 degrees. Little did I know what weather would meet us in Perth. We had a relaxing afternoon and even got to meet up with one of Larry’s friends from grad school, Fran Ten, who is soon to be touring with a Japanese rock legend! Sounds like a trip in our future!

It was soon time to schlep all of our 8 bags (3 of which I could actually fit into) back to the airport and get checked into our flight. After making the trip to Sydney last year, I have one thing to say about our flight: THANK GOD FOR EXIT ROW! It was the next best thing to being in business class. The flight attendants served us drinks, fed us dinner and then dimmed the cabin lights for our 14 hour sojourn. Larry was so tired, but was able to wake up long enough to eat dinner and then fell immediately back to sleep. I, unfortunately did not have the same experience. I had planned on taking some melatonin, but it happened to be located in the pants pocket of my sleeping husband. So I dozed off for a bit, woke up, dozed off for a bit and woke up again and started to feel so stiff that I actually got up and did some yoga in this hallway thing on the plane. I started with the Bikram standing series and then a few hours later busted out my sun salutations. Soon it was time to land.

The line through customs in Sydney was worse than waiting for a ride at Disney World. We waited in line at customs (made interesting by being able to watch the colorful flight attendants from the different international air lines. Emirates had red hats with jeanie scarves but the girls looked decidedly Caucasian), waited in line to get our bags, waited in line to leave the baggage claim area, waited in line to get sniffed by the beagle (he was extra excited after finding an apple in the back pack of the group in front of us) and then exited into the terminal where if there had been a red carpet, I would have thought I was entering the Oscars! There were mobs of people with balloons and flowers and all kinds of excitement. Unfortunately, our next destination, the Qantas Domestic Transfer, was upstream of the mob. We were like salmon going home to spawn dodging bear hugs of those greeting loved ones instead of bears.

After waiting in line yet again to check our bags for the flight to Perth, we were treated to a back scenes tour of the airport. When you arrive on an international flight and then get on a Qantas domestic flight, they are nice enough to give you a ride from the international terminal to the domestic terminal. This bus ride drives all around the edges of the tarmac and you get to see the planes up close and personal! We saw some 747s and the A380 which has two rows of windows, like a double decker bus, and can hold some 800 passengers!

After getting off the bus, entering the Qantas domestic terminal was like being in an oasis! First, it was beautiful and clean. There were very nice, high end stores and cafe after cafe after cafe. In fact, they even had a museum! We grabbed some brekkie (Aussie for breakfast) and settled in at the gate for the short wait for our flight to Perth.



The flight time from Sydney to Perth is 4 hours and 40 minutes. It was a bit difficult getting my two bags all the way to row 53, but once there we were treated to seats A and B, window and aisle. The pre-flight instructions were also a bit different. In addition to how to put on your seat belt, flotation device and oxygen mask, we got instructions on the crash position and how to avoid DVT. We also got headphones, a movie and lunch. About 30 minutes after lunch, the flight attendants came through the cabin with ice cream cones! This made me aspire to be a Qantas flight attendant. After lunch, I fell asleep and slept hard. We passed over snowy mountains, farm or station land and ocean.

When we landed, I looked over at Larry and said, “welcome home.”