Fresh sea air blowing in from the coast, ukulele in my lap, and a coffee in my hand... Recalling watching a dolphin jumping and playing right off the beach...
This will be one great summer vacation.
Want to guess where I am, mate? ;)
Australia.
Not even kidding! My family and I are in the land of the great down under. Kangaroos, Koalas, Aussie accents, beautiful beaches...
It's all here.
How in the world did we get to go to Australia?
Let's start at the beginning.
Twenty years ago, my dad began to work for an international company that sends him on business trips all over the world. Through these trips, he accumulated frequent flier miles, which he then could turn in for free tickets, electronics, etc.
After twenty years of flying, those added up to quite a few miles.
Enough to equal enough round trip tickets for our entire family to fly round trip. For free.
So, Since I am doing college through college plus, I had the ability to take that with me, wrap up business for Calvary Custom Sabers, and enjoy a six week trip with my family.
What a blessed life God has given me. It really does blow my mind.
So, I'll tell you a little bit about the flight down and the adventures we had. :)
the trip started back on Tuesday. We had drove up to the airport the night before, spent the night in a hotel, and got to the airport around 9am. Nothing to interesting so far.
Once we arrived to check-in at the “Supespercialgoldenmemberservicedesk” (since dad is a “Golden” member). There were some problems with getting some Visas for Australia.
Two hours of problems.
Talk about a long wait time.
When you come across “problems” out of your control, you can either get mad, or find the humor in the situation. We tried to find the humor. At one point, dad had all four flight staff around him trying to get they system to work... that was funny.
We also got a lot of.... weird looks. I mean, how often do you see a large family like ours, with all that luggage, in the highest class of fliers? I'm gonna say not very often. ;)
We missed our 11 o clock flight. However, we had a 12 hour layover in San Francisco, So we didn't have to worry about that to much, we just hopped on a later flight and were on our way!
After arriving at San Francisco, we got some food (I ate chinese. :) ) and passed the time until our 10:30pm flight. I played the Uke a little, while recharging the mac... Because a 14 hour flight was before us. 0_0
During the flight to Australia, I was able to sleep for ten hours.
That's right.
10 hours. :D
The rest of the time I burned by watching Humphrey Bogart movies, reading a book called “Reckless” (don't recommend it), and playing the iphone.
Finally, we landed at 6:30am on Thursday. Time travel occurred, which was awesome! /insert scifijoke/ We totally skipped Wednesday in our travels.
Figure that one out. ;)
Customs went without a hitch, as did baggage claim and securing the rental van.
We grabbed some breakfast at a really cool little coffee shop. It was sooooooo good.
Then began the 4 hour drive to the Sapphire Coast, to stay at a condo over the weekend. Here are some pics I took on the way. Here is a little vid I made for you guys:
Australian Scenery
As you can see, Australia looks a lot like England with the rolling hills and green everywhere. Trees are like the ones you see in California: Tall, skinny, and shrubbery at the very top only.
So now finally caught up with sleep, adjusting to the time difference, and all that good stuff. Looking forward to all the cool stuff that is going to happen, but right now, and loving the relaxed pace of this trip.
Oh, and here is a pic of what we could see right outside our front door...
No worries!
Austin
Whew! Glad yall got there and are safe! Keep updating!
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