Day One … and away we go

After days of anticipation and unbridled excitement the day has finally come, the count down clock hit zero and our lovely driver Judith arrived to take us to the airport.

Melbourne is a gloomy old city today. Rain is falling. The sky is misty. BUT … we don’t care!

Our journey today involves 3 flights. Melbourne to Auckland, then Auckland to Houston and finally Houston to Washington. Lots of flight time, lots of sitting around in airports but it will all be worth it.

Flight number one done! An hour’s delay because of all the rain but eventually we were in the air and on our way. The flight was uneventful and we arrived in Auckland (I ate the chicken thing …see photo below, it was very nice) and made the massive trek to International Transfers to go through security and then trek all the way back to the gate just past where we had landed. Flight two is our longest … almost 14 hours.

Flight number two from Auckland to Houston involved a hike from one end of the airport (where we had landed) as we disembarked to International Transfers where we went through security again and then the return hike as the plane we were on for this leg was parked in the gate next to where we had arrived 🤣. Airports are a great way to get your steps up. 

The flight was delayed by about an hour due to a medical emergency on the arriving flight. Apparently someone had a stroke 🥹 and so paramedics needed to assess them and take them off the plane before any airport staff could begin cleaning and prepping for the next journey. Our pilot however did a great job of getting us back on track and we arrived into Houston only about 20 minutes late. We both managed some sleep … only a little (so annoyed my sleeping tablets didn’t knock me out) despite calls in the middle of the night for a doctor to assist a passenger. I think this plane was jinxed.

Arriving into Houston we cleared immigration, collected our bags and took them to baggage transfer so they could make our flight to Washington. A quick bite to eat in the airport, a visit to the ATM, swapping SIMs in phones and we were on to board our final flight of the day.

So after almost 30 hrs we have arrived safely in Washington. We grabbed our shuttle bus from the airport to our hotel (a quick 5 or so minutes), checked in, headed to our room and, apart from writing the rest of this blog, are preparing to crash! 

Did you hear it in Australia? That was the crash!!!

PS if you leave a comment on the actual blog post … can you drop your initials at the end so I know who wrote the comment?