My Journey Home

My Journey Home

October 30th 2008

I woke up this morning at 5am here in Australia (4pm Oct 29th Toronto time) and I had an hour to shower, get dressed and pack my last few remaining items. Thankfully I decided it was better to pack most of my things the night before, so that I wouldn’t have so much to do this morning. Even still I was a few minutes late getting checked out of the hotel and missed my shuttle bus back to the airport. It was starting to rain outside and I decided to stay dry and take a cab to the airport. It was only about $30 Australian and was kinda nice to see more of the exterior of the city. Although the Sydney airport is nowhere near as far from their city center as Pearson Airport is in relation to downtown Toronto back home.

I arrived at the wonderful Sydney airport for the final time on my trip. It’s strange to think that I’ve been here four times in the last nineteen days. It’s such an efficient airport that it’s really a pleasure to have spent so much time there. I bought a muffin and a juice from the food court and waited until it was time to board my flight. I did wander a bit looking for a new watch. I love watches from other countries and although I had spent some time window shopping and even tried on a few watches at Surfers and other places, I hadn’t bought one yet. I am too indecisive. But today I knew which one I wanted and I hoped that the Surf Shop in the airport would have it. But with my luck they didn’t.

My flights home were much more enjoyable than the flights to Australia. This time I flew on Quantas for my longest flight of the entire trip. It was scheduled to be a 13 hour flight from Sydney to L.A., but it ended up being over 14 hours because of slights and signal problems that delayed takeoff once we were all boarded on the plane in Sydney. I didn’t mind though. The plane was pretty empty and nearly everyone had two to three seats to themselves. I luckily had three seats to myself and although I don’t sleep on planes it was nice to be able to stretch out or get up without disrupting anyone. I did have a cranky lady sitting behind me that made things a little annoying. But there were plenty of movies to keep me distracted. Quantas had a small computer box underneath every single seat in economy. Each seat had it’s own tv screen in the back of the seat in front of it and a remote build into the arm rest to control what we watched. The best part about it is that we could watch whatever we wanted and didn’t have to pay for it. They had over 40 different movies and many different genres from new releases to horror to artsy. I ended up watching the classic 1939 movie “Gone With The Wind”. It’s a four hour movie and I had never had that much time in a row to watch it before today. I was really glad that I finally got to see it. I also watched four other movies.

The food on the Quantas flight was awesome! It wasn’t bland and boring and it seemed like they fed up every few hours. They had nice little menus to look at so you knew how long into the flight to expect to eat and so that you knew what your options were. They even handed out pineapple creamsicles! It was super yummy. The only thing that Quantas was lacking in the food department was any sort of vegetarian meal. Everything had super processed meat. But they did offer you a second helping of fresh fruit such as bananas instead.

I was disappointed to arrive back in L.A.. That airport is such a mess with construction and even the areas not under construction seemed to be chaotic and unnecessarily causing delays. It’s such an unpleasant place to be after the great experience at the Sydney airport. I also immediately missed the Australian accent and cringed at the American slangs. I couldn’t wait to get back to Toronto.

The flight from L.A. to Toronto seemed to take forever. It was a five hour flight and no movie, no food unless I wanted to buy some. It was breakfast time (again) on Oct 30th since I had crossed the International Date Line and moved forward in time. So basically Oct30th was a really really long day for me.

I arrived in Toronto and couldn’t wait to get out of the airport. I knew Matt was going to pick meet me and I couldn’t wait to see him and tell him all about my trip. The funny thing is I didn’t even recognize him when I saw him because he had grown a large unkempt goatee for his Halloween costume (which is tomorrow) and he didn’t tell me. It was funny! It was now dinner time, around 5/6pm. So Matt and I went to Canyon Creek for dinner and surprised Crystal who was luckily working tonight. It was great to see two of the most important people in my life the day I returned.

I had an amazing time in Australia and it was everything I had ever dreamed it would be. I think that the city of Toronto could really learn a few things from Sydney and improve some simple basics that would make living here as enjoyable as Sydney seemed. But I am really happy to be home!

– Bonnie