Ok, as expected the trip over to Australia was long!
I think I'll start with the fact that I had a ride to the airport (Boston-Logan) set to pick me up at 4:30am on Saturday (09/14). With the usual best intentions of getting to bed early, I was still awake at 11:45pm Friday night. I seem to be incapable of going to be early. I had set an alarm to get up by 3:30, but woke up at about 3:15. Finished the last little bit of packing and was ready to go!
All of my flights on this trip are Qantas while in Australia, and New Zealand Air for the couple there. The flight to Australia was American Airlines from Boston to LAX, and then Qantas from LAX to Melbourne. My ride arrived right on time, and dropped me at the AA terminal by about 5:40. I entered and went to the gate. I was flying business class and that ended up being fortunate in a couple of ways. First, I didn't even have to stand in line to do my final check-in and give me a bag to check, which they could do all the way through. Hooray!
The flight to LA was at 8:00am. I headed to the TSA pre-check line (thank you, Global Express) and got to the gate in plenty of time. The flight out was pretty normal. The layover in LA, however, was - for various reasons - over 10 hours. Thankfully (and this the other way that flying business class was handy) I was able to utilize the Qantas Lounge while waiting. It was still a very long wait, but much more comfortable than it would have been in the regular terminal!
Our flight from LAX to Melbourne was scheduled for 15 hours 55 minutes, leaving at 9:50pm Saturday (the 14th) evening. Not my favorite thing, because I have never been any good at sleeping on planes. In this case, however, somewhere about 5 hours in, I did put my seat flat and actually slept for maybe 3-3.5 hours. A major triumph! I also read, did some work on laying out my poetry book, watched 4 movies, and got up and walked up and the down the aisle several times.
We landed in Melbourne about 7 minutes ahead of schedule, at 6:40am on Monday (Melbourne is 14 hours ahead of EDT right now). We 'deplaned' (I hate that word), went through passport control (actually pretty easy), and then to the luggage area (which was very crowded and hot and took a while). Last is customs and the line looked very long. Fortunately for me, a very nice airport employee to one look at me (looking exhausted, with my heavy bags, and my gray hair) and said "Come with me!" Which I did, and instead of ending up 100th or more in line, was about 4th in line. Through customs and into the terminal area by about 7:30 Pretty darn good!
A slight snag was that the transfer service that we had arranged had assumed more like 2 hours to get through the entire process, and thus wasn't due until between 8:30am and 9:00am. So I waited ... some more ... and eventually met up with the car service. To the hotel we drove, arriving around 9:45am. I was able to do the paperwork, but not to get into the room at that point (check-in at 2:00pm). I checked my luggage with the front desk, and asked where I might find a good lunch eventually, and much more importantly whether there something like a park anywhere nearby. I needed trees and blossoms after all of that time in airports and airplanes!
The answer was yes to the park - only about 3-4 blocks away. I headed over to Flagstaff Park. It wasn't big, but a nice size and easy to get around. A refuge and a breath of fresh air (yes, I know but I did it on purpose) for me.
I was actually checked in a little before 2pm (Monday) and a nice room it is. It's call Avani Melbourne Residential Hotel, and it's a small apartment. A kind of open-concept living/dining/kitchen main room, a bedroom with king-sized bed, and bathroom with shower. I did some unpacking, looked at everything sitting everywhere, and went to take a shower. Which I felt I needed after all of those hours of traveling. After the shower I read for a little while, and then finally finished unpacking and finding places for everything I had unpacked (which wasn't quite everything as I knew some things I didn't need while here).
By 7:30pm AEST or so I couldn't stay up any longer, so went to bed. And I actually slept until about 5:00am Tuesday morning. Quite something for someone who seldom sleep more than 6 hours in a night. I was TIRED. All in all, from Friday at 5:30am EDT to when I went to bed here in Melbourne, about 72 hours had passed, of which I had slept about 7 hours max over two nights. As I said, I was TIRED.
But honestly, by Tuesday morning here in Melbourne, I was feeling pretty good. Definitely still some jet-lag, but overall, ready to start exploring. Tuesday, my first excursion day, will be the topic of my next post!
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