We have officially been in Sydney for 4 days, 4 whole days. There have been no tears, I have yet to be totally lost and I have left the apartment at least once by myself. Yippee! Before I continue on the Sydney part of the journey I will step back to the travel from Manchester, NH to Sydney portion of the adventure.
The drive from Manchester, NH to Newark was relatively uneventful. We were in a Dodge Ram 1500 quad cab pickup, through part of Manhattan…it was…fun 🙂 The flight from Newark to LAX was uneventful. As soon as I turned on my phone after landing at LAX I had a notice from the Qantas app that a change had been made to our itinerary. It said our flight left at 10:00 now instead of 10:30, or at least that is what my sleep deprived brain told me. I have forgotten one vital thing, Qantas uses military time. Our flight initially was leaving at 22:30 and now was leaving at 10:00…the next day. Oye.
For those that have not been to the International Terminal at LAX believe me when I say it is a mile from the other terminals. We walked in the direction of the International Terminal because that was the only place to find a Qantas agent to get more information. This is when I became grateful that we were flying Qantas. We approached a gate agent that was working a flight to Brisbane. She told us our flight was cancelled and handed us a partial sheet of paper that was printed with the Hilton LAX address and phone number. (She also gave us a full sheet of paper stating Qantas’ apology for the delay but that safety was their primary concern.) She told us to go out the doors by ticketing, get on the Hilton LAX shuttle and go check in at the hotel. Once there we would get vouchers for dinner and breakfast. Seriously? A piece of paper no bigger than a credit card is all it takes?! There is no way. To say we were skeptical was an understatement, but we followed instructions and went in search of the shuttle.
Truthfully, finding that damn shuttle and the mile walk to the International Terminal were the most difficult parts of the journey. Once we were on the shuttle and we arrived at the hotel we proceeded to check in. A gentleman asked us if we were with Qantas, to which we replied yes. He directed us to a specific check in agent who asked Jerry for his passport, typed in our name, handed us 2 hotel room keys, 2 dinner vouchers and 2 breakfast vouchers. Holy Shit! It worked! Impressed I was and still am.
Fortunately we both had a change of clothes in our carry on bags since our luggage was not spending the night at LAX. We also had all our medicine with us. We got a decent night sleep, showered and were ready for the lines that awaited us at the airport bright and early. What we did not have in our carry on’s? A hair brush. In case you forgot, Jerry is bald and I had never really thought to put a brush in my carry on. My hair was clean and conditioned but brushed it was not. Ponytail for the win!
Once we were through the lines at LAX and on the plane the pilot explained what had happened. The plane needed maintenance and parts had been flown in from France to get it fixed. Due to the parts coming from so far away they needed to push the flight to the next day. Nice to know that they took the time to fill in all of their customers.
The delayed flight actually worked to our advantage. We are used to leaving LAX late at night and landing in Sydney between 7 and 9am. Then we try to stay awake that first day in Sydney to make the time change as quickly as possible. This time we left at 10am and landed at 10pm in Sydney. We got our luggage (YES!!! Qantas even got our luggage here on our plane! Amazing), cleared customs, got in the Uber and arrived at our apartment. We got the key from the lock box, figured out how to swipe into the building and arrived at our home for the next 6 weeks. As for the apartment, think 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom 400 square feet. Bonus, we have a wall of sliding glass doors and an almost 200 square foot covered balcony. Sydney is all about the out door living. In fact, our dining table is on the balcony.
Yes, we have a washer and dryer. Yes, we have a dishwasher. Yes, we have a microwave.
That’s all for now. More later, NB
1 Comment
Yay!!! You made it! Enjoy your time there!