American Odyssey

We travelled for 42 hours to get to Wilmington consisting of:

• 25 minute car trip from Cronulla to SYD international terminal
• 5 minute check-in through the Qantas club
• 1 hour breakfast farewell with family and friends
• 30 minutes through customs and security
  
• 1 hour wait on the plane before take off
• 12.5 hour flight from SYD to LAX
• 2 hour trudge through immigration, customs and security
• 2 hour reorganisation of our journey with US Airways staff
  
• 10 hours at the Westin LAX
• 2 hours through extra security and waiting for the next flight
• 4.5 hour red eye flight from LAX to Philadelphia PA
  
• 4 hour wait at PHL
• 1 hour flight from PHL to ILM
• 1 hour sorting out luggage, rental cars and driving to apartment

And when we got here the apartment was not as we expected. No study, no laundry room and no cot! After a lot of discussion we have sorted everything out and we will be moving to a different apartment tomorrow. Needless to say I was not happy jan! This is on top of not having any sleep for the past 2 nights.

The reason for our odyssey is simple - US Airways overbooked the flight from LAX to CLT and we were the unlucky bunnies to check in last and therefore got bumped. We were at the terminal, could see our plane, they called for passengers but we weren't allowed on. One lady tried to swap with us (ie give up her seats) but they couldn't offer her alternative arrangements as the computer system was down so they made her get on.

Thankfully they put us up at the Westin for the day so we got some sleep. There beds are truly heavenly. They gave us food vouchers ($5 per person for lunch and $10 per person for dinner) But strangely Lucy did not count as a person. If you know the Westin you will know that the voucher did not go far especially when Andrew had to get a taxi to a supermarket to get extra food and formula for Lucy. But we got a few hours sleep.

US Airways flew us 'first class' to PHL. I put first class in inverted commas because its not really what you would call first class, more a very poor Qantas business class. The seats weren't even comfortable! Lucy slept for 4 of the 4.5 hours in daddy's arms.

During our travels we met some nice people and some rude people. Lucy was angelic as usual. I've listed the eventful and horrible aspects but most of it was actually fine - just not interesting enough to blog about. At least we have a new PHL magnet to add to our collection!

So much more to tell you but you'll have to wait until tomorrow for the next update!