So April 11 lasted two whole days for us...

April 11 - Part 1:

We left our very convenient room at the Formula 1 hotel near Melbourne Airport by about 7am and walked across to the airport with our luggage. My immediate thought was... we've packed way too much. I'm sure we looked like pack mules hidden under all of our bags. I have no idea how i'm going to carry all of this around for 2 years!

On our way to the airport we came across this very fitting scribble in the pavement (see pic).

Anyway... we finally checked in to the flight after Robbo tried to wrangle better seats for us long legged folk. After making the person at the counter rip up two lots of boarding passes we finally came away with the sets we were originally allocated (it's not even worth going into the whole story here). We got a quick hot drink, rang the parents one final time before leaving the country and then headed through security. It wasn't long before we were boarding the plane and on our way.

When we boarded the plane we took our seats. I was very excited about the fact that you could watch the plane take off and land! Not long after we were asked by a hostie if we would mind swapping with an elderly couple who didn't want to sit in the bulkhead area (just as roomy as an exit row) because the arm rests didn't move. As the old duck had a cane and they were staring at us as we were asked we couldn't very well say no could we - so up we moved. Incidently these were the exact same seats that the person at the counter had tore up for us the second time aound at check-in as Robbo didn't like the fact he couldn't streach his legs under the seat infront as it was just a solid 'wall'.

Anyway so knowing that the arms don't fold away we were relatively happy. After saying so for the fiftieth time to the hostie, she then proceedes to tell us that the only thing about these seats is that you can't watch the screens upon take of or landing and walks away. Kim = GUTTED!

Despite this little setback the flight was great! Whoever complains about the flight from Australia to the US or vice versa needs a good clip behind the ears. It is brilliant!! I was loving watching all the Movies and TV Shows, listening to music, even playing some video games. My only worry was fitting it all in to 14.5hr flight time! There was no sleep for me on this flight!

April 11 - Part 2:

Good Morning America!!! We arrived in Los Angeles early in the morning as the sun was rising. We had an 8hr layover in LA and originally thought we might get to do something while we wait the 8hrs for our flight into San Francisco however the little old lady at the information desk at the airport could only tell us that the only thing she knew of was to head upstairs to the 'food court' area of the international terminal where some seats were available for people waiting for connecting flights. REALLY? As we were a little tired and confused (the 14 hr flight was catching up with us) that ending up being exactly what we did because trying to work out anything else was just a little bit too difficult.

The wait for our connecting flight to San Francisco was horrendous! It was such a battle to keep our eyes open. One of us had to stay awake to keep an eye on all the carry on baggage we had - I decided to do the first shift at let Robbo snooze a little. BAD IDEA! While I was fighting off the nods Robbo was having a nice little kip, after a couple of hours I thought it was well and truely my turn. I woke Robbo up, we had a bit of a chat and what do i catch him doing - nodding off to sleep again. I couldn't trust him to stay awake even 10 minutes to look after the bags so I had to force myself to fight off sleep, practically giving myself whiplash by jolting my head back upright after slowly nodding off, until our flight. It would have to be the absolute worst form of torture!

We finally got in to San Francisco at about 6pm, caught the train (the BART) into town and a bus (after working out the bus that had passed us six or more times at the stop was the one we needed to catch) to our hostel that is home for the next 10 days. We arrived at about 7pm - just in time for the free dinner and beer, and then fell straight into bed; exhausted after being up for 30+ long hrs but excited to finally start our adventure.