The morning started off well, i got a pretty good night sleep for the final time in awhile in my nice comfy bed. Woke up at 5:30 running through my mental checklist. Yep all done just one more quick weigh and shuffle and i was done.

Did my last drive for awhile in Dad's car to get to the airport. As per usual my reading times nearly got the better of me. Good thing i push us leaving earlier than i had originally planned. Turns out i needed every second of that time.

Massive line at qantas when we arrived spent 30 mins in line to drop my bags. Then filled in my depature form, said good buy to Mum, Dad and Rach and headed down to get through security.....

Well seems like it was my lucky day. I was randomly picked to walk through the full body scanner which was set off by my jacket and pants. The jacket was removed and xrayed the pants.... well needless to say i kept them on but the zipoff bottoms were causing issues.... so once, twice through the scanner, in the meantime my laptop and carry on and jacket are unacompanied on the other side of the wall... but i wasn't panicking yet.

Grabbed my stuff and then jumped into the customs line... so i pottered along there for awhile making good progress when i found i had not picked up my jacket.... so back out of line grab my jacket and then at the end of the queue for me it was. maybe another 30mins in this line?

After that i was off to the TRS counter to get my tax back on my laptop... and what's this? another line!!! golly remind me to never fly in the morning again. So another 20mins in line here and after some discussion with the officer i got my money...

Then power walking off to the Qantas Lounge i went. No hanging around with the phesents for me!! no i was off to relax and enjoy drinks and bevies thank to Clare and her Husband for sourcing me a guest pass... Sadly i only enjoyed the lounge brifely with a flat white and piklets for brekkie but it was a really nice way to start the next 20hrs + of flying.

So with trepidation i get on the plan to see who would be sitting in the seat next to me? Someone who wanted to steal half my seat wit their thighs? some one with a weak bladder jumping me all the time to get to the loo, someone with a cold constantly snorting their own snot?? oh the horror! maybe i should have booked a second tix just to sit in peace?

As it turned out i sat next to a lovely lady, Carol. We had a bit of a chat, not too much (as Bernadette knows i don't like to talk with strangers or neighbours for that matter ;)) and she even save me frm the obknoxious chum sitting in front of me who reclined his chair fully within the first 3 hrs of flight.... not to sleep but so he could watch movies! Also she gave me her pizza sub to eat for the light dinner meal which was a life saver... in return i helped her through LAX being the old hand that i am ;) so she could get to her terminal. so 12.5hrs later we landed in LAX.

I must also quickly note, Qantas i am dissapointed with your selection of movies.

I watched the Guilt Trip (not bad). I started the Silver Lining Play book but gave up after 30min as it was all a bit morbid... and started Life of Pi but also gave up when the animails started eating eachother... not cool. Can i suggest you add Wreck it Ralph, TED etc to your list so there are more lighthearted movies to watch?