En Route - Feb 1 - 3

Well it certainly has been an adventure so far!

After a hectic day of laundry, last minute packing and tidying, seeing the dog off to Bill's sister, and welcoming our house-sitter, my mom came to see us off and our friend Mike arrived to drive us to the airport. This was no easy feat, as the snow that had been gently falling all day really began to pick up. It started to accumulate very rapidly, especially, it seems, on the 407 where we followed an assembly of seven snowplows on our way to YYZ. We saw several cars in the ditch and another completely turned around 180 degrees. The conditions were terrible! Of course, I expected our flight to be delayed and began to worry about making our connection.

Eventually we did make it to the airport, and then began a strange series of events. It seems I have only ever travelled during peak times like March Break, and so I assumed the airport is always chaotic. However, the airport was eerily quiet and deserted yesterday when we checked in. There were hardly any other people around! Freaky.

After we did the self check-in (which saved no one any time in my estimation), we learned that our Australian visas were not valid because they were all registered to our old passports. The travel agent assured me we would be fine, but no. So, off I went to a computer to enter all of our information one at a time and pay for them again, one at a time. Finally, we were off to customs. Bill's and my mugshots both came out of the customs declaration machine with a big X going through our faces. I assumed again that there was a problem. After some good-natured razzing from the agent about why we would want to go to Christchurch, we were off to security. Again, there were miles of cues set up and not another sole. So bizarre. Yet again, I assumed the worst and figured everyone else but us knew about a cancellation and they were all home waiting to fly out the next day.

The seven snowplows were just a couple vehicles in front of us

Aboard the flight from LAX to SYD.

When we found our gate I was assured to see many keeners there waiting for us. Since it took us so long to get to the airport and then the long delay while I re-applied for our visas, we didn't have much of a wait before our flight to Las Angeles was called to board. When they began boarding, the also announced that a meal was NOT included, which we were expecting, so off we went in search of a meal! Thank goodness we did, because although we boarded on time, we sat on the snowy tarmac for two hours. After de-icing we departed for Los Angeles. I have to honest, the 15+ hour flight to Sydney wasn't that bad. We were served dinner with wine at 5:30 a.m. Toronto time. That was interesting. I think it worked to help with the jet lag!

The long haul menu. I had the chicken.

Jack is ignoring the de-icing procedure

(Yes, there were plenty of on-demand movies to choose from. I watched Blue Jasmine, the James Gandolfini - Julia Louis Dreyfus one, and 127 hours. I also watched 2 episodes of House of Cards.)

 

We spent Super Bowl Sunday/Monday in the Sydney airport. Pretty uneventful. We found some shady grass outside and chillaxed for a while, climbed up to the observation deck, played card games, and made friends with a wee little girl who liked to high-five. Yes, we could have gone to town, but decided it wasn't worth the stress to our over-tired minds and bodies to figure out the transit system.

View from the SYD observation deck.

So, we were off to Christchurch soon enough. Brody fell asleep immediately, and I managed to eat my meal (all the Qantas food was remarkably good, btw) before passing out. We made it on time, but as feared, our luggage did not!