Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today …

 

Thanks Frank.

One flight down, two to go until New York. The flight from Brisbane to Sydney was uneventful, but when they say “this is a full flight”, they aren’t kidding!

We arrived into Sydney at about 8.00pm with a pretty hard landing. Actually, I wasn’t sure if we’d crash landed or been shot down … I wanted to ask the captain but TOTIL wouldn’t allow it.

I’m no food critic, but I have to say that the meal served on the Qantas flight coming down was excellent. I had the pasta with Mediterranean meatballs, and TOTIL had the chicken and broccoli salad. So good in fact that we were offered seconds. (Apparently it’s not often that passengers eat the entire meal, and the flight attendants were SO impressed that they offered us another one each!)

The flight attendants were so lovely and friendly, it made for a great start.

No coffee served on the flight, and 8.00pm in Sydney airport is past everyone’s bedtime … but we were able to scrounge a cup at the hotel.

Used Uber for the first time ever, so that’s one more thing to cross off the list. Had a 4.9/5 star driver (Lee) and he was so nice and friendly, carried our bags, told us to relax … I gave him 5 stars because he deserved it 🙂

Spent a relaxing night at the Adina at Mascot. Nice, quiet room, very comfortable, GREAT shower … felt very relaxed. Then we hopped into the shuttle bus to the airport this morning and all that relaxation just slipped away.

If I described our shuttle bus drive as arrogant, aggressive, unfriendly, rude … I’d be describing his most endearing characteristics. Scary ride! Welcome to Sydney …

But here we sit in the AMEX lounge at the Sydney international airport pretending like we do this all the time, and waiting for our flight to depart in about 2 hours … then 13 hours to San Fransisco, transit for a couple of hours, and then about another six hours to NYC.

Woohoo!

The first question that fellow travellers always seem to ask is “who are you travelling with?” We answer “United” and we get a puzzled look, followed by “Oh … I hope it’s OK” Now I don’t really know what to expect, but I’m keeping my expectations low, just to be safe.

There probably won’t be another post for a couple of days as we sit on planes, try and get some sleep, read a book, watch a movie or three, and overcome jet lag … so don’t lose hope peeps, there will be more to come when we are in NYC.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA