australia

[spacefem]

I had a terrible time getting to australia but I made it!

sunday: left Wichita on a flight to dallas. in dallas there were terrible storms and record flooding. our flight was delayed for several hours until we boarded. Then we sat on the airplane in line with other planes to depart for about three hours until the crew timed out. 45 minutes to get out of that line and back to the airport. an hour in a customer service line to re-book, where we were told the only way to get to LAX in time for the next australia flight would be to get to houston and then LAX. signed up for that.

monday: another very delayed departure out of dallas, another two hours sitting on the ramp. by the time we took off we'd missed our connection out of houston. stayed the night in houston.

tuesday: called the airlines and our company's travel service to get an earlier flight out of houston, this time we actually made it to LAX and finally made the flight over the ocean to sydney. we had planned to go to melbourne for the first two days but that was scrapped.

thursday morning: arrived in sydney, finally! it was 7am. We had customer visits, then lunch with local colleagues, then we went to a fun petting zoo to kill time and stay awake and meet kangaroos :) I was so dead tired by evening I could barely stand up but we went to dinner, dang it! we made it!

friday: more customer visits, then in the morning we walked around the harbour and sydney opera house. I was thrown off by the 5pm sunset, it's funny how much our brains get habits around sun up/ sun down times. I thought we were really late for dinner then remembered it's technically winter here.

saturday: woke up and flew to brisbane (pronounced "brisbn", with a really short 2nd syllable, not bris-BANE like a midwesterner would say it. australians will correct you). Rented a car and I got to experience driving on the left side of the road for an hour to our next stop in gold coast. I did okay!

it's a work trip, but it's in a lovely area. I'm here until thursday.

Comments

[susandennis]

i'm so glad to read this. i have been wondering wondering if you made it. YEAH!

[armiphlage]

Yay! Happy voyaging!

[adafrog]

Dang. Glad you finally got there.

[fbhjr]

Glad you got there, despite the troubles!

[beceh]

Welcome to Aus! I'm sorry you missed out on coming down here to Melbourne, but if it makes you feel any better the weather here was really crap earlier this week and it would have been raining and cold the whole time you would have been here.

Enjoy Queensland!

[spacefem]

Weather in Sydney wasn’t much better! Gold Coast has been gorgeous though :)

[greghousesgf]

cool!!

[maju]

Sounds like a really gruelling trip - glad you finally made it safely!

[gilda_elise]

Yeah, Texas is a mess right now with the weather. Hope your trip back is smoother!

It sounds as if you're having a lovely time. Never been to Australia, but the people I know who have have really loved it.

[siglinde999]

Yay! That sounds like quite the ordeal so I’m glad you made it. enjoy the rest of your time there.

[ironphoenix]

Congrats on getting there at last! That story about flights seems regrettably common these days.

[coercedbynutmeg]

Yay! Congrats on making it (eventually).

[elainegrey]

So glad your travel worked out!

[pineapple_sour]

I hope you get a chance to enjoy Australia!

[acidtrips]

hi there, i added you.
i think i clicked on your username from susandennis's journal because we just became new friends on here.
i read your profile, and we have a good bit in common interests-wise.
i also moved here from livejournal, but i did so recently... so i'm starting fresh.
i've had an online blog since 2000, livejournal first, then bounced to xanga, i kept that writing daily until it died, and i saved all my archived posts. i had the option to upload them to wordpress and continue there, but it just didn't feel right. at some point, i made an LJ again, and now i'm here. for my entire life though, i've kept a hand written journal. even before i could write, i was keeping notebooks of drawings about my day as a child. i have a giant black trunk of full notebooks and journals of all types. writing daily.
anywho, if you'd like me to remove you off my list, please let me know
if not, i'm happy to be here, and hope we can get to know more about one another. ♥
regardless, i send you all the love and light and hope you have a wonderful day.

PS: i love kangaroos! i'm so jealous... except for that picture online of that kangaroo with giant muscles who looks like if he got upset, he could throw you to another continent in one pass... that's terrifying. if you haven't seen it, google: "kangaroo with giant muscles" - it'll definitely make your search history look weird, but it'll give a clear image to what i'm referencing. i apologize in advance.