So, it is 4:40 am on Sunday morning and I'm FINALLY back home. I arrived on a foggy Detroit winter morning to 40 degree Farenheit weather after waking at 6 a.m. on Saturday Jan. 5th in Sydney (which was 1 pm Thursday, here in Ann Arbor) and my day(s) since went as follows:

I have been on a plane with an unscheduled stop in Brisbane, Australia (10 am - 11:40 a.m). We deplane in Brisbane as they have to "replace the engine" and handle some "mechanical problems". This entails, going back through immigration and customs and being directed to an information desk that tells us they are putting us up in a hotel in the city of Brisbane, a 25 minute bus ride away.

We are asked to check-in (which takes 45 minutes for over 200 people) and given lunch vouchers. I have enough time to get a bite to eat and take a quick shower before we have to hop on a bus again and back to the airport. I wait for another hour+ in line to reconfirm that someone will be working on my connecting flight home. When I reach the desk finally, I'm told I'm not in the computer (even though I did mention this at Sydney and again when I deplaned in Brisbane). Sigh.... so the nice man, John, helped me out only to find that there was a notice to "not board" me as a passenger. I'm now starting to wonder about that wish I made the previous night. The one where I was wishing I didn't have to leave this amazing country?

So we sort that out, I still am not clear why I was classified to not board, John couldn't give me a reason, but assured me that someone would be working on my connecting flight in LA.

After getting to the gate, which was changed after the boarding passes were issued, I was about to settle into a chair to wait, when several security guards starting setting up shop and telling us we could not wait down near the gate, they needed to perform a security check on passengers and carry-on luggage. I'm now wondering what deity I pissed off to earn this... its now 6 pm Brisbane time (that's one hour behind Sydney which means I've now been up 13 hours and am still no further to home) The flight was scheduled to leave at 6, then 6:30 and I think we finally left the ground at 7:25 pm, much to the cheers of the other passengers.

So I stayed up for dinner, watched 3:10 to Yuma, not a bad movie and the eye candy was good (Welsh hottie Christian Bale and Aussie Russell Crowe), read a little bit and waited for the lovely mango ice cream bar and took my sleeping pill. I woke in time for breakfast and an hour later we were landing in LA (its 2 pm here, 7 am Sunday morning in Sydney. 21 hours since I woke up and I've had 6 hours of sleep in that time) My Saturday was basically spent on a shuttle bus, in an airport, on a plane, in another airport, on a bus, back on a bus, on a plane and in another airport. Most of the time in the airports was spent standing in a line and getting to know the pissed off people around me. Yea for me!

So once in LA, I get tagged by the friendly drug sniffing beagle for having had a bag that touched fresh fruit from the plane, was scolded by one customs official for not putting done I had a granola bar that was given to us on the plane after being told I didn't have to write it down... from now on, I'm writing EVERYTHING down. If this trip has taught me anything it is that very few people know what's going on and they don't want to share information. Everyone has a different story or way of doing things. So I was nice and friendly and polite to the point of being sickening and gave the appropriate "yes sir" or "no m'am" and thank you to all and was hustled off to another line to claim luggage and find that no one had any notice of me with a connecting flight. Sigh.... yet one more line and if I had been 15 minutes earlier, I could have gotten on the 6 pm flight home to Detroit. No such luck. However, the nice man at the counter, Jose, was finally able to help me (after much searching and questioning) and I was booked on the 10 pm flight home with a window seat a a $20 food voucher and shown the exit doors that led to my humble home, the USA.

So I gather up my bag, the extra bag with a bunch of Sharon's clothes and mine that wouldn't fit in the suit case with the stuff I bought and walked the 1/4 mile to the Northwest desk to check myself and my bags in. There I was helped by a nice man whose name I did not get and reminded that if I had been a little earlier I could have made the 6 pm flight, but do to bag screening, there was no way they were going to hold a flight for a no name like me. So I check bags, go through one last security check (thank God!) and I'm off to find a paper and food. I bought a $9 sandwich from Wolfgang Puck (not bothered by the price as that was cheaper than most sandwiches in Australia) and something to drink which totaled $18+ for my $20 voucher. I make my way to my gate, some 3 hours early but I want to be near it in case I fall asleep.

10 pm arrives and I am thankfully on my way home. Lucky me the middle seat is free and I will be able to stretch out a bit.

Allison is waiting for me at baggage claim. Thank God! I don't think I've been happier to see someone I know in a very long time. Well it's off to bed and as I no longer have a day to recover and I have to show up to work tomorrow. I'll make another post or two to sum up the trip and get the rest of my pictures up.