August 29 to 31 Long travel day to Australia

I love Australia but I don't much enjoy the process of getting there.

This trip is especially excruciating since we added on a jump from our original destination of Sydney down to Melbourne. We built in a long-ish layover in Sydney to allow for any issues in customs or late arrivals of our flights from California.

Not a whole lot of interest here so feel free to look at the pictures and move on.

My first flight leg was on Continental from Houston IAH to Los Angeles LAX. Because of all my travel last year I've got "status" on Continental so I get a better choice of seats, can use the short lines, and do early boarding. Not so the rest of this trip where I'll be on Qantas. For some insane reason, Qantas doesn't do anything except airport check in. I managed to get an aisle seat way in the back. I used to do window seats but ... aging... need more trips to lavs. Sigh.

My flight leaves LAX about 11pm Friday night. Fourteen and a half hours later and across the international date line, I'm on the ground in Sydney at 6am Sunday morning. My co-instructor for the Melbourne class arrives a bit later on a flight from San Francisco.

Customs is very busy but a breeze. A visit to the ATM, then we hunt down the transfer to our Qantas domestic flight to Melbourne. Coffee in one of the few things open. "Skim milk" does not register with the girl at the counter, "skinny" does.


Short 90-minute flight to Melbourne and a taxi ride to the Melbourne Sofitel arriving around noon. It's about 28 hours since I left the house in Pearland.

The Sofitel is a very nice place! The hotel lobby is on the ground floor but rooms start on the 35th floor and go up to the 50th. The floors between the lobby and the 35th are an office block. I'm on the 48th floor looking more or less south.

After all that travel last year, this is the first trip where I've got a working phone. Got a company-issue Blackberry a month or two ago. Not just a working phone, but full function email, web browser, Google Maps, etc all work here in Australia.

We scout out the building where the company office is and then wander down a random street in search of food. And wine. Most things in the area seem to be closed but we find a little Italian cafe. Good food, a glass or two of nice Australian red wine and exhaustion hits.

I spend the rest of my day going over material for the class.