New Beginnings

I finally made it to Geelong!  What started out as a 30 hr trip had another 24 hrs unnecessarily added to it due to delays and plane problems.

My first flight from Wichita to Dallas was severely delayed due to a mechanical error of the plane, and by the time I made it to Dallas I had missed my connection.  I did find it quite funny, the airplane magazine had a really cute article about swimming pigs in the Bahamas.  Pigs... of all things, as I make my way to my job working on pigs...

Once I missed my connection at DFW, the airport put me up in a hotel for the night, and I also received food coupons to cover meals.  They rebooked my flight for the evening the next day, so I had quite a bit of time to sit around and wait.  My rebooked flight from Dallas to LAX was scheduled to leave at 5:00pm, but again, a mechanical error of the plane lead to another serious delay.  Luckily I had plenty of time to catch my connection from LAX to Sydney.  The flight to Sydney was a long one (15 hrs), but Quantas had a much nicer flight experience than any of the American Airlines.  Each seat had a TV screen where you could queue up a movie or TV show - they had a ton of options to chose from!  I also got a pillow, blanket, and eye mask.  Plus they served really good meals, with free alcohol!  I did not expect it to be such a nice flight, but then again, a long flight is a long flight, and I was quite stiff by the end of it.

I was happy to board the plane at LAX because I thought that surely once we were in the air, I was golden on getting to Australia.  Unfortunately that wasn't the case.  A few hours into the flight they made an overhead announcement soliciting anyone who had a medical background.  An hour after that they announced that we would be stopping in Hawaii to drop off a guy on the plane who had a heart attack.  I honestly didn't believe it at first (I mean, could anything else make this trip more discombobulated?).  We stopped in Honolulu for two hours to let the guy get to the hospital, and then the crew had to fill out a bunch of paperwork to account for making an unexpected stop.

Thankfully from Hawaii onwards, the trip went smoothly.  I arrived in Sydney with no troubles and found my connection to Avalon, where my boss picked me up from the airport.  Due to all the flight changes, my luggage was behind me, and hopefully it'll arrive within the next two days or so.  I'm currently staying with my boss and his family until I can find a place of my own - hopefully within a month or so.  I'd hate to infringe on them too long.

For now, my job is to set up a bank account, cell phone, and work on finding a place to day.  I get a whole week to relax and set things up before I start work on Monday.  I'll post more about my Geelong adventures later!