SYDNEY, NSW, AUSTRALIA

Hello! June 23:   The trip was very easy, looonnngg, but very easy. One of those 1.) watch a movie 2.) eat dinner 3.) sort of sleep for 8 hours, 4.) think of something else to do for the next 4.5 hours.

June 20, Monday, however, was extremely stressful.  Our travel lady, Marsha, called in the morning to tell us that part of our trip had to be altered due to the ash cloud over Australia.  She then said, "I hope it doesn't effect your travel."  What ash cloud????  It seems that the Chilean volcano that had erupted several weeks ago, and that had already disrupted travel in New Zealand was making a return appearance.  On its repeat run, it was swinging past Tasmania, Adelaide, and was on its way to confuse air traffic in Canberra and, gasp, Sydney.  I spent the day watching the news reports, videos of swirling ash around South Australia, and listening to dismal reports about cancelled air flights.  The capper was watching the United site and "our" flight that was supposed to leave Monday night (we left Tuesday LA time).  First the flight was delayed 2 hours, and then cancelled altogether.  Gasp.  I knew we'd get here one way or another, but it would mean losing our air miles/business seats, and hopping all over the Pacific in little, uncomfortable bursts - Guam here we come.  Fortunately, the ash cloud swept to the south (its still disrupting flights in and out of Tasmania), but Sydney was clear.

The only time I can remember a trip that had a beginning like this was our trip to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.  We had booked an entire tour with Varig Airlines, which had been the national airlines of Brazil.  A few weeks before we were to leave, Varig announced in was going into bankruptcy and was canceling all of its flights.  Then a few days before we left, they announced they were going to try to fly again.  Our trip, as far as I know was the last few weeks of Varig.  One of the strangest flights ever was the flight from Santiago, Chile to Sao Paulo Brazil.  We were seating in business, with a huge airliner and no more than 20 passengers altogether.  It was like flying on a ghost ship.

We landed in Sydney at 7 in the morning.  We got to the hotel around 9.  We discovered that the room had an ether net cable, but Charlie's MacBook Air doesn't have a port for the cable.  We enquired at the desk and they told us about an Apple store about a half hour from the hotel.  It was a great walk, we found both the store and, obviously, since I'm writing this blog, the cable.  We played around Circular Quay until our Sydney Lunch Cruise at 12:30.  I'm not sure what I expected, but it was a very elegant lunch.  The day was beautiful, too.  Here's some photos of our walk, and the cruise.

The photo of me is outside of our hotel.  The next photo is one of the hotel from the harbor cruise.