Didn't sleep toooo badly considering the heat and blowy fan. Woke up ~5:55. Breakfast was leftover sweet and sour pork from last night.
Out the door around 7:35. We'd just left the village when Mum bumped into someone she knew from the village. He said the trains were out on the Cronulla line.
WTF??
So the only choice was to walk to Sutherland. Apparently some "urgent repairs" at Caringbah, whatever that meant. Sutherland is twice as far and I got all hot and sweaty, which is the last thing you want to be doing when you're going to be travelling for the next twenty four hours. #grunt.
But we walked straight onto a south coast train that was running a couple of minutes late (Mum was going into the church office in town). So didn't end up any later than we would have going for the Kirawee train. Got to the airport maybe around 8:25ish.
Had to walk All The Way down the checkin counters to United. They're mostly self service kiosks for printing bag tags, and then you go see the human to drop off the bag and have your passport checked. Honestly I don't think having the machines to do the bag tags yourself really saves any time, because people don't know what they're doing and it takes time anyway.
Security was relatively painless as well and into the airport by 9am. So, a couple of hours to kill. Well it would have been an hour and a half, but boarding was delayed half an hour. I did see the plane land though which was pretty cool.
Jars of vegemite for sale at one of the Duty Free stores in Sydney Airport
On the plane (a 787, which the GPS doesn't work in #grunt) I was in the back row of two, with noone next to me. Not the best setup for looking out the window, but there wasn't much to see anyway. But very nice to not have anyone to jump over to get to the toilet.
United Boeing 787-900 N26967 at Sydney Airport
Me about to spend the next 16 or so hours in a plane
Entertainment system on the 787
Leg room on the 787
View towards Kurnell from the plane
Clouds near Tonga
Galley at the back of the 787
View north along the tip of Baja California
Wispy clouds over Mexico
Clouds over Texas
United don't have paper menus anymore. But unlike other airlines they don't have it in their app either. So the only choice was "pasta" or "chicken" with no other details. I had creamy chicken and beans which was nice enough although the bread roll was a little dry.
I watched a heap of movies: 8 Mile, Fargo, Molly's Game, Funny Girl and Ted, none of which I'd seen.
I had to chase breakfast half an hour before landing. No idea what happened but I never saw them come past with food (I saw drinks trolleys a couple of times). It wasn't nearly so nice and I had to eat it in a hurry.
Landed 9am local time (we had a strong tail wind the whole way and arrived an hour early), which was 2am Sydney time.
At Houston you go through immigration, then pick up your bag and drop it off again, then go through security. Then I had no idea where to go. The departures screen I found didn't have my flight on it. hmmm. In the end asked someone, and turns out I'd walked right past another set of departures boards. Because it was like 2:30am.
So I got to the terminal with about an hour to spare. Which was fine, but it would have been awful if the other plane hadn't been running early. Went and got Subway for lunch, although they couldn't heat it so it wasn't all that pleasant.
Ended up hot and sweaty again by the time I got back to the gate. #grunt. Then went into battle getting my esim (or even Optus) to work. Even though I'd told it to use one or the other for data, each of them also have another setting further down to enable mobile data. #grunt. Not the sort of thing my brain wants to be dealing with at 3am.
So the next flight was on a 737 and it was very full. There was a whole cheer leading group from Las Vegas and a couple of them were sick #grunt. It was mostly cloudy so I dozed (not slept). There was a bit of turbulence. Did see a couple of the exits of the Mississippi which was pretty cool. And once you hit the coast of Florida it's just one big urban development all the way to Orlando. Around fifty bazillion lakes. Which apparently all have alligators. We did get a really nice view of Orlando before landing which was cool.
United Boeing 737-900(ER) N37465 at Houston George Bush Airport
View towards the southernmost point in Louisiana where the Mississippi River outflows
View over St Petersburg and Tampa Bay
View towards St Petersburg in western Florida
View over Tampa Bay - where we'll be cruising out of in a few days' time
Lakes in central Florida
Junction of Route 417 and Florida's Turnpike near Orlando
Orlando International Airport
View towards Crescent Park and Airport North (my hotel is in the middle there somewhere)
Junction of Route 408 and I4 in Orlando
Downtown Orlando
Orlando Executive Airport. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have a small airport right under the approaches to Orlando International Airport??
View west towards Orlando
On the ground I saw my bag come off the plane (hurray!). Picked it up then called the hotel and they sent a shuttle.
Roof of Terminal B (west satellite) at Orlando Airport
Air traffic control tower at Orlando Airport
Place is nice enough, although the door handle you have to lift *up* to open. Dumb. And the bed is very soft. The aircon seems effective (but very noisy). And all the rooms seem to have the option for double rooms so there's a door to the next room you can hear everything through. Lame.
Downloaded my photos and gps and wrote up the day so far. Then I had a shower. Which spread water All Over the bathroom floor. #grunt.
Then went out to find some dinner. It had to be Denny's. It's tradition. Even had a relatively healthy option of salmon, veggies and fries. From the 55+ menu so supposedly a smaller size :)
I had to go to Denny's for dinner for traditions' sake!
The back to the hotel to finish up the day's blog entry and get orgamanised for tomorrow..
Comments