Australia, the trip

If there is one constant in the universe it is that "a United Airlines flight shall take off prior to its declared departure time, nor shall it land prior to its declared arrival time." I believe it is a direct result of the Friedman solutions to general relativity. At any rate, all three of our flights en route to Australia were late by some amount.

On the upside, I had some great company to spend those extra hours with!



My new Timbuk2 bag turned out to be the perfect carry-on, and feels incredibly durable and comfortable. Here it is fully packed:



Our puddle-jumper taxied half-way to the runway when the captain reported that we were not allowed to leave for another hour. Luckily the delay was only thirty minutes- but then again we left the gate thirty minutes late too.

In Chicago we had a nice Italian meal and discussed knitting techniques. Our flight to San Francisco was delayed by an hour, and they apparently had a different type of plane than they expected, so a lot of passengers checking in later than we did had to have their seats moved.



The seats on the flight to San Francisco were horrible. I don't think I've ever sat in smaller coach seats, and underneath every chair a steel box containing circuits for the built in headrest TV consumed about 1/3 of the foot space.

I'm always a bit awed by the size of the 747. Though not as large as it is sometimes portrayed in movies, it is quite massive.



Unfortunately ours had some technical trouble with the sensor that relays the position of one of the flaps to the main computer. Fixing it took two hours. Then through some kind of communication mix-up, the large runway at SFO was closed for maintenance, and the baggage personnel did not remove extra freight from the stowage, as requested earlier. Until they did this to reduce the plane's weight, there was no way that beast was going to gather enough speed over the shorter runway to take off. That was another hour and a half (I think, we were pretty spaced out by then and dozing frequently).

The traveling kangaroo took it all with an easy smile, perhaps buoyed by her excitement to return to her native continent.



Fourteen hours and two Ambien later, we landed! Customs asked us if we had any food items, plants, wooden items, drugs, or flu-like symptoms. They seemed very serious about it, though as it turned out they didn't have much of a problem with my bamboo knitting needles.

We decided to take the train from the airport to Parramatta (where our hotel is located) in order to get a feel for the transit system. Here Erin is trying to work out which way to Central station, where we needed to switch lines.



Central station was a little bit smaller than I expected. Nothing quite so spectacluar as New York or Chicago, by any means.



Here's a photo I took while waiting at Central station for our Train to Parramatta:



The trains though were clean, quick, and otherwise pleasant. Erin wanted to smile for this photo but I told her not to, and I'm afraid she took it too literally:



We rode to the Parramatta stop and walked about 5-10 minutes to the Hotel. I had time for a shower before I had to run off and participate in a three-hour work session to prepare for today (Monday).

Later in the evening we met with some work folks for a pint and some pub food at a place across the street. Hopefully tonight we'll be a little less tired and will get out a bit further.