January 5, 2019 Travel Day

Our trip home.

When we were making our plans for this trip, Ken and I decided that it made more sense to have one long travel day home, rather than splitting it into two and losing part of a day.  If we'd opted to fly back to Sydney on the 4th, stay at Greg and Yolanda's overnight, then drive to the airport for our 1pm flight we would have lost at least half of the 4th to travel and the morning of the 5th would have been a waste also.  Instead we chose to fly out of Cairns on the 5th and take the 5am flight from Cairns which arrived in Sydney at 9am with plenty of time to catch our 1pm flight to San Francisco.

I have to say that plan worked flawlessly.

When our alarm went off at 3:00am it was absolutely dumping rain! 

The picture didn't do the rain justice so I took a short video

We caught a taxi at 3:30am and had just the right amount of time to get to the gate to board our plane at 4:45am.  Even for a relatively small airport it was busy at 4am.

On the plane in Cairns at about 5:00am

Just getting over the rain clouds to see an awesome cloudscape

Sun is starting to lighten up the sky and we are between two layers of clouds

Our first of two sunrises on this long travel day

The Gold Coast of Australia

So much coastline outside Sydney

Cliffs on approach to Sydney Airport

We arrived in Sydney on time, thank goodness, because it ended up taking us just under 3 hours to:

Get from the Sydney Domestic terminal to the International terminal (there is a free shuttle bus that is just called "T2" and someone helpfully scratched "Internat'l" above that in the paint otherwise you'd be just guessing that it was the transfer bus...but I digress).

Get through check in at United, which included a guy at the head of the line checking that everyone only had one piece of carry on per person - and since we had two small backpacks, one canvas bag, and my small 8"x8" purse he said it wouldn't work.  I had to put my purse in my backpack and that then became my 'personal item' and Ken wasn't allowed to have a personal item. So we got through with a total of 3 small carry on items.  It wouldn't bother me much but I saw many people on our flight getting on with a carry on sized suitcase plus a backpack and a purse.  But 'whatever' as they say.  We managed just fine with what we had, and we weren't overweight on our suitcases even with the VBs packed away!)

Get through customs in a 'quiet' airport - which means they don't have the overhead speakers telling you everything you have to do, but instead have monitors you watch to see how to insert your passport into the reader, then move forward a few steps and stand on the yellow shoe markers, look to the tower to have your picture taken, then wait for the green check mark and the doors to open so you can pass through.

Get through Security, with a jackass of a TSA agent (and this was in Sydney, so had nothing to do with being an unpaid US TSA agent) that threw away my toothpaste and made everyone, and I mean everyone, have to get a separate bin for their 'jumpers' (aka sweaters) after literally pushing their jumpers off their bags onto the rollers saying 'no jumpers' and standing there looking at each person until they picked up their sweaters and put them in a separate bin.  Jackass.  (oh, sorry, I already called him that once, didn't I?) But they did have plenty of tables set up to put all your luggage back together.  That was a plus.  As was not having to take off our shoes!  Small blessings.

What we brought home

Get through the Duty Free shopping area, which I think rivaled Heathrow for size, and only buying what we came for (Bundaberg Rum).

Find a place to eat - which was harder than one would think. We opted for an Italian place and ordered two personal pizzas.  30 minutes later our buzzer let us know they were ready.  We had 20 minutes left to eat our pizza before we walked over to our gate which had a fence around it.  Yep, the only gate to have a fence around it and two people checking our boarding passes against a pink post it note, to then let us enter the gate area.  Never did find out what that was all about.

United 787 Dreamliner for our ride home.  Doesn't look very big but it seats 3-3-3 and has lots of headroom so it felt pretty spacious - plus had extra large windows.

At 12:10pm we boarded our 787 Dreamliner.  We'd booked an aisle and a window seat and the middle seat was taken (same as on the way down) but this time there was a guy on the aisle seat across saying the woman in the middle seat was his wife and would we be willing to switch.  Sure!  He and his wife took the middle and window and Ken and I had the two aisle seats across from each other.  Score!  We were in economy plus which means we get more legroom.  That's about it.  On the flight down we got free spirits but on the way home they said nope, we had to pay for the spirits.  I think that was wrong, but the service was pretty spotty anyway so it really didn't make any difference.

It was a fairly turbulent flight home.  Multiple pockets of turbulence, seat belt signs, interrupting movies with messages to put your seat belts on, etc.  Neither Ken nor I got much sleep.  Maybe 2 hours total (compared with probably 5 hours on the flight down).  But we arrived on time in San Francisco and were able to see our second sunrise in the air.  One as we left Cairns and one as we arrived in San Francisco.

I have to say that the Mobile Passport thing is awesome!  My coworker told me to be sure to download the app before we left as it would make the return in SFO a breeze. He was 100% correct.  I almost hesitate to say anything because then more people would know about it and it wouldn't be quite so easy.  BUT I have to share.  With the Mobile Passport app all you have to do is take pictures of your passport and answer questions online and submit within 4 hours of your arrival.  I did all that on the plane waiting for the doors to open.  We were then able to walk right up to a customs official (in the line marked Crew/Mobile Passport) with the app and our passports.  He asked us a few questions and off we went to get our bags.

It was raining in San Francisco and cold.  I could see my breath.  A 50 degree temperature difference and from Summer to Winter, all in 25 hours.  Usually I'm happy to be home but not this time.  I'm still experiencing Australia withdrawals.  But home made Mac and Cheese and Lasagne (made by my Mom, and Mother in Law, respectively) made the transition home smooth.

Bubbly home made Mac and Cheese!

Now that we are home I can focus on getting ready for a puppy to join the household and make us crazy, again!