3 am Sleepless in LA

Episode 2:

We left Albury on time at quarter to 10 and arrived in Sydney 40 minutes later... with 10 hours to kill.  We sat in a cafe, reading, talking, with short walks to look at the few shops until it was time to check in. YAY! there were heaps more shops after customs... much bigger and better shops as well.

Kerri happened to mention the small items she'd brought to give to the teachers in her strand discussion group and I thought "Oops! something ELSE I forgot!" But after cruising the souvenir shops, I found some lovely little gifts (wooden coasters made from Aussie timbers like blue gum, red box, etc and some funky little Australian grammars with the sub-title 'funetic slanguage' which I thought might appeal to the English teachers). 

Then we sat in the boarding lounge... with an added hour waiting - there had a been a pile up on one of the freeways and 90 people were late for the flight, rather than ruin their holiday/business trip for something that wasn't their fault, V-Australia delayed the flight and tried to make up the time on the trip across the Pacific.  Which we did!! we were only about 15 minutes late pulling into LAX. 

About 13 hours in the air, a nice meal, watched How to train your dragon and Avatar with about 6 hours sleep in between.  We were in the last 2 rows which meant a lot of noise and every one who used the loo brushed past me.  Not ideal sleeping conditions - so it's probably a good thing that I tend to be a bit of an insomniac, sleeping in fits and starts.  So anyway, we arrived in LA around 6pm WST.

Then another 2 hours to get through Immigration, Baggage Claim and Customs and we were finally outside looking for our Shuttle to the Sheraton Universal.  It took about 40 minutes to get across LA, a huge city of 9.8 million people (2009 figures, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06037.html).  It was sooo strange that there weren't trees like we are used to... only these great triffid like palm trees peering over the tops of the buildings in massive droves...I wonder if Wyndham ever travelled to LA?

Anyhow, eventually at about 9:15 we made it down to the restaurant only to be told it was closed, but the bar was open for snacks and there's room service. Not in our room... with four of us in a smallish room and only 2 seats in it!  The other girls decided to walk down to the Hard Rock Cafe, but after approximately 26 hours of travel, I didn't want to walk another step - not when we have all day tomorrow at Universal Studios!!!  Exciting!  So I ordered a delicious herb crusted sea-bass served on a bed of warm vermouth, potato and tomato granita,  Mmmm, Yumm-oh!  Then bed for two hours and neither Chloe or I could sleep, so here we are at 3:45 am in the computer lounge catching up on emails and blogging, etc...

So that's the flight, and I will soon be off to catch another 3 hours shut eye before our big day tomorrow.

CU L8R,
Tracey