Flying Down Under- June 23

Flying Down Under- June 23

Our flight from San Francisco to Sydney Australia is at 11:10 P.M. on Wednesday night. We leave for the Airport at 6:45 P.M. Art drives and we talk over all the details of both the trip and keeping the Marty Magic business running smoothly in my absence. Art will have much to do, but he will also enjoy 18 days at his own pace. John and I will share an adventure and we travel well together.

We arrive at the airport nearly three hours before our flight, check in easily, plod through security and after locating our gate, we choose to sit down at the Firewood Grill restaurant for a late night bite to eat. Art cooked us dinner earlier tonight, but John is hungry again. John orders penne pasta with chicken and I choose a steak shish-ka- bob with salad. The food is decent and the hour passes pleasantly.

Our Quantas plane boards on time, but it is after midnight before we are airborne. A small television screen is mounted on the back of each seat and a good selection of movies are available. John and I watch Alice in Wonderland, but the roar of the jet engines makes it difficult for me to hear the dialogue. A late night dinner is served but we eat little, more tired than hungry. I take half of a sleeping pill and drift off but John has difficulty sleeping; his long and lanky body contorted into the confines of his economy seat. John eventually falls asleep and is sleeping soundly when breakfast is served. The flight is 15 hours long and relatively painless.

We land in Sydney with a two hour layover before our flight to Melbourne. It is raining and as we exit and the pilot announces over the loud speaker; to mind the “slipperies.” We deplane to a chorus of “cheerio’s.” I am excited to be in Australia and my guard is down with our extended layover. We take time to use the restrooms and follow the signs towards international? (We are indeed international travelers.) As a seasoned traveler, I should have known that something was amiss when we are again funneled through a security check. John and I wait patiently through the inefficient line, eventually putting all of our gear through the x-ray machine. We exit into a glittering duty free shopping mall and I gravitate towards the overhead arrival and departure screen in search of our departure gate to Melbourne. It takes me just a few seconds to realize that we have taken a very wrong turn and I hail down a security personal and tell her our plight. She quickly checks our boarding passes, swipes a security card along a sealed doorway and John and I enter the correct rabbit hole into the domestic terminal.

We have missed our connecting flight by a few minutes, but are quickly assigned a flight just 30 minutes later. My stress level is high but we are soon airborne and I am grateful that we have not been charged anything extra.