A Few Numbers:

For those of you who are following along and are wondering just how difficult it was for Eryn and I to get to Sydney, here are the numbers of:

- Estimated hours from JFK to Sydney: 20
- Actual hours from JFK to Sydney: 54
- Airports departed from/arrived at: 5
- Unexpected fueling stops: 2
- Meals eaten on plane: 4
- Screaming babies on plane: 2
- Days of travel: 4
- Number of time we changed clothes: 0
- Hours slept between JFK and Sydney: maybe 12
- Number of crazy people encountered: 4-5
- Number of fortunate things that occured: 2

So here's the whole story. Eryn and I arrived at JFK about 3 hours early for our flight. There was no line at the check-in counter or at security, so we had a lot of time on our hands at the gate. We should've realized our good luck could only get worse.

After boarding the plane, we find out that there is a problem with air traffic control and our plane is #34 in line to take off. Sweet. An hour later, we finally take off. Now, at this point, Eryn and I feel kind of stupid because we scheduled our connecting flight a mere hour after we were supposed to land in SF... Then we got angry at our STA Travel agent for booking the flight in the first place. Anyhow, we figured so long as nothing else went wrong, we might actually make the connection...

HA. Silly us.

About 5 hours into our 6 hour flight to San Francisco, the captain comes over the loudspeaker to inform us that we had met up with more headwind than expected, therefore burning a lot more fuel, and therefore we no longer had enough fuel to make it to SF, and THEREfore had to stop off in Salt Late City to refuel. Eryn and I looked at each other with the same expression on our faces: "awesome." It was at this point that we realized there was a very very good chance that we would not make our connecting flight to Sydney.

So long story short, despite a fairly quick turnaround in SLC, we still missed out connection. Gah. And we couldn't get our luggage because it was going to take too long to get it out of the nether regions of the airport baggage storage thing, so we got to spend about 3 days in the same clothes. And we met Crazy Person #2, the shuttle bus driver, who was yelling at a poor chinese woman for not being able to speak English (despite the fact that she actually was speaking English, just with a heavy accent... I translated for her eventually), then telling everyone on the bus that we weren't going to get out of SF until Friday... In hindsight, it's quite possible that she was drunk, judging by her behavior (and her terrible driving).

But, trying very hard to turn lemons into lemonade (or, more like wring the crap out of a lemon peel to try and get one single drop of lemon juice), we did our best to take advantage of the fact that we had a day to kill in SF. We walked along the Embarcadero, wandered around Fisheman's Wharf for a while (yes mom, I tried the Dungeness Crab... and I can see why you like it so much!), saw the World Famous Bushman at work, met up with Chris Kim for a quick drink, checked our e-mail at a local library (where Eryn was harrassed by a couple of old Asian men who were angry at her for cutting in line, which she didn't...), and then headed back to the airport for yet some more waiting at the gate. Oh, and Fortunate Thing #1 happened in SF... All the public transportation was free that day because of a city-wide effort to encourage people to use less gas. Anyhow, when we tried to check in at the little computer kiosk at the airport, I found out that I couldn't get my seat assignment until they called my name at the gate. Which meant, of course, more waiting.

Finally, we got on board our flight to Sydney, both convinced that we were not out of the woods yet and that something else was bound to go wrong. Well, we were right. About 13 hours into our 14 hour flight, the captain came on the loudspeaker to announce that Sydney was all fogged up/over, and we'd be diverting to Brisbane to refuel and wait out the fog (deja vu anyone?). Honestly, at this point, it wasn't even surprising anymore. Optimism simply wasn't in our emotional vocabulary. I felt like Marvin the Robot. Or Eeyore.

Long story short (again), we did finally make it to Sydney. And Fortunate Thing #2 happened: we met a nice guy on the plane who gave us really good directions on how to make it through customs quickly and how to get to our hotel quickly. I kept saying that I wasn't going to relax until we were sitting in our hotel rooms... But lo and behold, we made it!

According to the itinerary we got from the CCSA program, our group was supposed to be on a tour of the city when we arrived, but would be meeting up at the Sydney Opera House to take a tour at 11:45. So we busted our asses to shower and change our clothes (finally) and get to the Opera House on time. This is about when we met Crazy Person #3 (or 4?), our cab driver. Our cab ride went something like this:

Eugene: Sydney Opera House, please.
Cab Driver: Um... Hm... Okay...
Eryn: ...
Cab Driver: hmm... Opera House... Opera House...
Eugene: Um, is that going to be a problem?
Cab Driver: Oh, no no... It's just that I'm not from the city.
E & E: ??!?!

Yeah. So we actually pulled out our tourist map and I literally had to show him how to get to the Opera House. But we did get there... Only to find out that not only was there no trace of our CCSA group, but the people at the tour guide desk had NO idea who CCSA was or if they were going to show up anytime soon. So after waiting a few more minutes, we decided, screw it, we're here... we might as well take the damn tour ourselves!

And man, was it worth it... If you are ever in Sydney, you MUST go to the Opera House! It is one of the most architecturally stunning things I've ever seen. And it was so great to finally see it up close.

Okay, this is getting really long, so I'll wrap it up... we did eventually meet up with everyone back at the hotel (it seems they all had trouble getting into Sydney, so the itinerary had been shifted around a bit) and went out to a big buffet dinner at the rotating restuarant at the top of the Sydney Tower, overlooking the city. Now, normally, I'm a big fan of buffet dinners, and it doesn't hurt to have a great view of a great looking city. However, after all this hassle and traveling, and the fact that I was still very jetlagged and so tired I could hardly see straight, eating in a slowly rotating restaurant was not exactly my idea of a good time. I definitely felt slightly nauseous the entire time. I did get to try kangaroo meat for the first time though... Eh. It's alright. But I'd rather have a nice beef steak any day.

Which brings us, finally, to today! Not much to report yet... I'm feeling slightly under the weather (i think from the lack of sleep and change of weather, more than anything). ...the weather, btw, is a brisk 57-ish degrees during the day, and a slightly chilly 40-ish degrees at night. Not too shabby :)

Alright... I hope every one is well. And don't worry, my other blog entries won't be this long!

-e