We woke up early to catch our flight to Sydney. Antonia arranged for a shuttle bus to pick us up at 6:15 a.m. to take us to the airport. There was a really annoying American family on the shuttle. The daughter kept saying how she was "NOT going to spend 2 hours sitting around the airport" and the father kept saying "at HARVARD....". No wonder why peop
le find Americans obnoxious.We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. We hopped on our flight to Sydney. We were a bit nervous because we only gave ourselves 2.5 hours between our domestic flight and our international flight to Auckland. Naturally, our flight to Sydney was delayed so we had even less time. We were nervous and exhausted, as we had only slept about 3 hours the night before. We had hoped to be able to sleep on our 3.5 hour flight from Cairns to Sydney but were not able to because of two factors: 1) our seat neighbor was a 20 year old from the Cairns area named Lee who was "bored" and wanted to chat the entire flight and 2) the Euro guy ("EuroGuy") sitting in front of us kept getting up and standing next to us to open up the overhead compartment.
We had no issues with Lee. He was a very nice and well-spoken boy with a faux-hawk who asked a lot of questions about the U.S. His impression of the U.S. was molded
by all he had seen on TV. He asked about Hollywood and California in general. He talked about life in a small town in Australia and his trip to New Zealand. He was funny and nice, so we didn't mind talking to him, even though we were so exhausted. Whereas factor #2 was another issue. While constant movement to the overhead department normally wouldn't bother us, EuroGuy was lacking in the personal hygiene department. Every time EuroGuy lifted his arms up to get something from the overhead compartment, we got whiffs of the worst smelling body odor imaginable. Sadly, this happened at least 6 times during the 3.5 hour flight. By the end, our eyes were watering. We finally made it off the plane, bid farewell to Lee and good riddance to Euro Guy and made our way to pick up our bags to bolt over to the international terminal. We opted to take the shuttle bus to the international terminal rather than the train. Bad idea. It was so crowded and took forever. At least we didn't opt to walk. It was a good few miles from the
domestic terminal and you would have had to walk in the 110 F weather. We luckily made it with time to spare and hopped on our Air New Zealand flight to Auckland. This time, we had a nice row for 2 people, no talkers and no BO. Thank goodness.We picked up our rental car from Hertz- a nice silver automatic Toyota Corolla hatchback - and made our way from the airport to our hotel. As it was already 9pm by the time we headed out, it was a bit challenging navigating and driving on the left side in pitch blackness. Thankfully, we made it to our hotel in Auckland in one piece, and rested up for the long day of driving tomorrow.
For the pictures of the day, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=bigtandeze&target=ALBUM&id=5408488776326129761&authkey=Gv1sRgCLGvgPWL5dGPGA&feat=email
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