Sunday, July 06, 2008

Arrival in Melbourne

We arrived in Melbourne safely with our luggage at 3pm local time (Sunday), but were supposed to be here at 8 am.  Melbourne is 17 hours ahead of Alberta... so 10 pm Saturday night.  We had a 1 hour delay in LA, which caused a 6 hour delay in Auckland!  Because we weren't sure when the new crew would arrive (the old one timed out waiting for the plane to come in from LA), we couldn't leave the airport to see the sights of New Zealand.  Luke and I considered taking the chance, but because we were both so tired, we ended up shopping and sleeping instead.
 
Flying with Quantas was wonderful.  They checked our luggage for us in Calgary, and they transferred it for us in Seattle, LA, and Auckland.  The meals were large and tasty, and for once my knees weren't in the back of the seat in front of me.  It was so weird flying on July 4th.  For a Friday, the airports in all 3 countries were fairly dead, and the planes had a lot of empty seats.  That meant Luke and I got to share the seats in a 3 person row all the way from Seattle to Auckland!  It was so nice to have extra room!
 
And, thanks to Diana and Dad for getting me the keys to a wonderful apartment 15 minutes from school my new school (www.westmountchater.com ) in Marda Loop, Calgary.  I was so worried I was going to be a victim of fraud there for a while, but luckily my initial judgement of my landlord's character was correct.  Unfortunately he just had a forgetful cleaner come in to clean the place,  so she ended up taking my keys to Stampede!
 
We have met so many pilgrims for WYD so far!  There was a group of 100 from Quebec who were sponsored by the Canadiens, so they all were wearing jerseys in the LA airport.  (Uncle Percy would have been quite impressed seeing so many jerseys in one spot!)
 
Anyways, I'd better go soon.  We still want to plan our day for tomorrow, before we collapse into our beds at "The Nunnery".  By the way... know you that saying about "Don't let the bed bugs bite"?  Well apparently it's actually true here in Australia.  There are tons of signs warning you not to use your sleeping bags unless you absolutely have to, so it prevents spreading them!  Yuck! 
 
Love you all,
Andrea
 
PS.  Luke wants to try Kangaroo tomorrow... I'll let you know how that goes.
 
 
 
 

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