Well we have arrived in Sydney, Australia!
Needless to say, the flight was long and we spent a good deal of time in the airport too. There were a few delays checking in – new equipment that wasn’t working right and a plane that arrived late. Still, we had plenty of time so we were chill, which was a good way to start our vacation – chill.
The flight was terribly long, however, over 10 hours total. When I thought we’d been on the plane forever, we were only halfway there, haha! Everything was pretty good, though. They served us two meals and beverages and played three movies - don’t watch the new Gulliver’s Travels by the way, totally lame – so it helped pass the time and we were never starving or anything.
Getting off the plane and out of the airport was quite a process though. They have these quarantine rules and before you can even get up out of your seat, the attendants open all the luggage compartments and walk by with this spray that supposedly kills any pests? Really? One sweep of a spray – that is supposed to not harm us humans on board – on one side of the outside of a bag is going to eliminate any pests? OK then. So that took 20 minutes and then we were allowed to get off.
Then we stopped and bought an adapter – Aussie to USA which we could find no one in Hawaii – and had to get our passports checked and exchange money and pick up our bags and go through customs! It was a lot of standing in line but, again, I was pretty chill.
After asking about getting around the city, we bought train tickets to our hostel. It was a whopping $16 per person, completely ridiculous for the amount of ground we covered. But there was no way around it. It reminds me of our Europe trip and how that wore on me to pay such high prices for everything everyday.
Anyway, the train was smooth and clean – everything fairly clean so fair – and we enjoyed our little walk to the hostel. In fact, we walked through a park, past a cool fountain and cathedral, and came across this… thing. I said aloud, “What the heck is that!?” At first, I thought it was a squirrel but then I realized it was about the size of a cat, if not a tad bigger. I want to say it is some sort of possum but I am not sure. At any rate, I approached it – it was very calm – and tried to get a good shot of it, which was hard because of the dark (it was already 10pm by then). After a while though, he started to approach me, which frankly creeped me out with his big black eyes, but it did allow me to finally get a good picture of him. I laughed at how much I must look like a tourist!
We found the hostel just fine and the lady was nice enough to upgrade our room since she had some free space there. There are eight beds in the room and a bathroom attached it which includes a shower. This attachment is something we got maybe once or twice on our Europe trip so I definitely consider that a bonus. The bathroom could be a little more in-tact, but hey, it has character.
So our real Aussie adventures start tomorrow and I am excited! I am happy to have seen a strange animal on just my first evening! What will tomorrow bring?
Pictures:
Here I am waiting to check in at the Honolulu Airport!
A view of the sun setting from the plane.
The "possum"
The "possum"
Me on the train with all our bags.
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