We're Back!

I know many of you have been waiting impatiently for the past two and a half years for my next travel blog post. Sadly becoming a real person means that it's a lot harder to go on extravagent holidays (that's Australian for vacation). But I saved my pennies and my time off and have now embarked on a journey back to Australia. I'm currently sitting in the Sydney Airport, waiting to get on a plane to Hobart. Oh Tasmania, or as most people say, "I can't believe you're going to Tanzania!"
Sigh
So my too kind roommate Sherry drove Isabel and I to the airport Saturday late morning, with only a few cars trying to kill us, typical boston, and we checked in no problem, got to the gate and had at least an hour until boring. Sorry I meant boarding. I credit myself with our plethera of time  spent waiting at gates. I am always paranoid something will go wrong and have memories of Charles de Gaulle and the horrible lines there. My memories of the baguette we ate on line are fonder.
Get on a plane to Atlanta. Why? Miles seats, and there's technically a flight from Atlanta to Sydney. I say technically because it's stops in LA, everyone gets off the plane and gets on another, but it's billed as Atlanta to Sydney. So we get to Atlanta and have a medium long layover, maybe three hours. We walked to terminals and called family members to tell them we survived and then found food. I got some tacos and some circle bread (for non new york jews, circle bread is what others try to claim are bagels). Isabel got ribs and regretted it. She wanted veggies but decided that the ribs smelt too good. By the way, Atlanta is the busiest airport I've ever seen. If you stand in the middle of any fall you will get swept away.

We fly to LAX with no issue, go to find a bathroom, and by the time we get out the flight is boarding. We get on and a few minutes later we're joined by a gentleman who looks at us and says, "Well I'm happy you're not the same size as me."

He wasn't that big, though he didn't understand airplane ettiquette. Middle gets the armrest because the aisle has legroom and window has window to lean head. But Isabel and I put the armrest up on all the flights and just had a large seat for the two of us.

The flight was mostly painless. There were three young (australian accented) children behind us, who were adorable except the youngest made way too much noise at times. But for a 15 hour flight it could have been much worse.

Customs were a breeze, I didn't even need to see a real person for any of it. The downside is I didn't get a stamp, there's no evidence I was ever here. Sigh. Isabel had to see a person because it couldn't autorecognize her picture, what with her no longer looking like she is 16. The picture is hilarious by the way.

Now we're sitting in the Sydney Airport. And things are only going to get more exciting

Lion and Tigers and Bears and Kangaroos...minus the first 3

I apologize to both my fans for not posting yesterday, it was a test to see how large the outcry for more would be...actually the internet was down so that made it more difficult to post things to the web. Anyway, what happened since then. well we went and looked at more birds. as most of you probably realized two sentences into anything i say about birds, there's a limit to how long you can stay interested in them. i reached my limit yesterday when my dad started chasing tiny brownish bird number 34 when an amazing landmark that linked australia to the antartic is literally within sight. this landmark is called remarkable rocks. they certainly were worth a remark or two...and they were fun to climb on

For an idea of scale, there are people walking around down there

There was also Admiral's Arch about a kilometer away. I think it must be an admiral of fur seals, because that's really all that was there, no people in crisp navy suits and funny hats. It was an absolutely beautiful plac, as kangaroo island are in general. So after looking at those things and birds we called a day. the rest was lazing around and reading. we looked at the stars, and they were even more clear than in rural maine. also i'm guessing the southern cross can only be seen in the southern hemisphere. That was yesterday, today we got up before 7 to catch a plane to adelaide where i'm currently sitting. by the end of the day we should be in Hobart, Tasmania.
Other notes. I've had so much steak in the past day its absurd. Steak for dinner night before last, it was great. our hosts saw i enjoyed it so much that they gave me all the extra bits (easily as much as i'd already had). guess what was for lunch the next day. more beef. sigh, yum, aahhhh, loosen belt (beef not kangaroo meet for anyone wondering). A goofy looking bird we saw that's definitely worth mentioning is the spoonbill. Not to be mistaken with the razorbill, the knifebill, chopstick bill, vacuum bill, or the forkbill (at least one of those is real, you guess).

The Arch/gateway to a new world. Pretty Magical view