The day finally came. It was a day we had been anticipating for 9 months at least. We were
"nervous-cited", as Alyssa put it. We were excited, but very nervous for such a long journey and experience. We had 4 big pieces of luggage and one small bag of books. That big bag of books (for schooling) weighed almost as much as the large luggage.
The girls were so excited as we sat in the Austin Airport. Getting through security was interesting though. Alyssa's bag got pulled aside for further looking as she was super upset. She thought she would never get it back. We had to unpack it because they saw something "suspicious". Ended up being our Apple Grams game (like Banana grams). Apparently the tiles of the game must look really dangerous. She was glad to get her bag back.
Ready for the airplane ride. (All smiles now, but this will change by the end of the trip)
Everyone with their own screen?..... AWESOME!!!
Riding the transfer train. Ava was obsessed with dancing around the pole. He he....
We were in a big hurry to get to our international gate. We made it!!
Strange picture... but I wanted to document this for my journal. This is a 17 hour flight to Sydney, Australia. We took off about 8:30 pm. We would be flying through the night. The five of us were not all sitting together. We had 3 seats in one row, and two behind that one (in the middle of a row of 4). As I put Kayla and Savannah in the back row together, I got a "not so nice" look from a lady sitting on the end. There was a gentleman sitting on the other end of their row of 4. Alyssa, Ava and I sat in the row in front of them. Not far, but I had no idea how this flight was going to go and having them behind me was lots harder than having them to the side of me. I spoke with a flight attendant and she was kind and told me that if nobody sat in the open 2 seats to the side of me in the other row, that would be fine to move them there. As the plane got close to closing it's doors, I put K and S in the row to the side of me. They were glad to move closer to me as it would be easier to communicate. The gentleman (which I shouldn't call him because he was anything but gentle) began to get very upset. The stewardess spoke to him and told him it was fine. He proceeded to tell her that it wasn't fair and that he was traveling 37 hours and needed the whole row to himself. First off, you only pay for one seat, so that is all you deserve dude!! I told him that we were traveling 35 hours so his wasn't a sad story. They sat there for about 10 min when the stewardess came again. He proceeded to argue with her about how it wasn't fair that they move by him and that they needed to move back....And he was making a huge fuss right in front of K and S. I could not believe what a jerk he was. She told him that they could sit there anyways. Finally, after about 10 more minutes and as we were just about to take off.... the girls were visibly upset and the tears were beginning to form. I knew sitting by this man for 17 hours was going to be more tortuous than behind me. We decided to move them back and the gentleman sitting on the end of that row was so nice to let them back in. After watching him throw such a fit about them sitting there he was very nice to us. As my girls got situated back in their original seats, Momma bear came out and I let the guy have it (quietly). I told him how ashamed he should be for being so rude. He proceeded to tell me that they should sit back by their father. I told him that was not their father and that I was traveling alone with my 4 children and wanted to be able to help them and have them all sitting close to me. That shut him up! Then I repeated that he should be ashamed of himself for being so selfish and rude.
It ended up being better that they moved anyways. The nice gentlemen moved to another seat after the plane was up and going so that I could move back and forth to talk to them.
After the 17 hour plane ride we arrived in Sydney Australia at about 6 am their time. The airport was pretty empty as far as people and so we had the pick of spots. We searched around for a good and comfortable place with carpet and outlets to charge our devices and ourselves.
Hardly any sleep was had on the flight. So, everyone was very exhausted. Kayla found herself a spot on the floor and dozed off a few times.
We waited in the Sydney airport for about 5 hours and then went and found our gate. Just after we got there it started to downpour. It even rained hard enough for the water to start coming into the airport ceiling and flooding the carpet by our gate. Because of this storm, they closed the airport to outbound flights for about 1 hour. We finally got on our airplane 1 hour late. Then we sat on the tarmac on our plane for 2 hours waiting to take off. There was such a back up because of the closure that it put everyone behind. I was panicking because I knew in Auckland I wasn't going to have much time to go through customs, get our bags and go through immigration and then walk to the Domestic Terminal to check into our Auckland to Christchurch flight. Finally we took off and had an uneventful 2 1/2 hours. Then they wouldn't let us off the plan for 30 more minutes. I was sweating bullets about making our plane. We hurried and ran to all our destinations and finally to our gate in time. Then, the next flight was late late late..... The girls were completely exhausted. It was 10 pm Auckland time and they were going on the second night of no sleep.
The girls were thoroughly unimpressed with the airplane food. They will be glad to never have eat food on a plane again. Got a little smile here anyways.
As you can see, the exhaustion was intense. The A's were out cold by take off. K and S tried so hard to stay awake but dozed off and on near landing. It was a short 1 hour flight. I wondered how I would get these guys off the airplane with how asleep they were. There was some intense sleeping jerks going on.
We were SO glad to see Dad at the baggage claim in Christchurch. We had finally made it.... about 39 hours from start to finish... Wow!!
Love it! Sorry it was so crazy! I was sweating bullets for you too!
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