The End... of this Adventure

I wrote this yesterday as I was waiting in the airport to catch my flight from Melbourne to LAX. As you cab guess, I made it home safely and only about 2 hours late. January 21st, 2010 was the longest day of my life... literally. With the flight home and crossing the International Date Line, it lasted 42 hours. It's good to be home.

My last few days in Melbourne were spent shopping and relaxing. Tuesday I headed to the Highpoint Mall, a three level atrocity of shops and department stores. I honestly don't know why I go to malls... unless I have something specific in mind, I rarely buy anything. After that I took the tram to Queen Victoria Market for one last look around. I was waiting at the tram stop and when it came, I realized I was on the wrong side of the road. It was the first time I had done it, but it was still pretty funny.

I wandered through the aisles of the market, checking out tacky tourist souvenirs, handmade clothing and jewelry, and strange electronics and games . This is where I actually bought stuff... some cool t-shirts, a pair of super comfy yet funky pants, some fruit for the next couple days, and fresh ahi tuna for dinner the next night. And my last skinny flat white.

For my birthday, Derek bought me a ticket to the Australia Open. If you go after 5:00, you can get a discounted grounds pass which lets you watch all the matches except the ones at the two main courts. It was really neat! I think there were 21 courts in total. There were a ton of people dressed in their country's colors. Swiss men with their faces painted red with the white cross, Australians wearing green and yellow sombreros, and lots of people wrapped in flags. I've never really watched tennis before but everything is more exciting live. There are grounds judges at every line as well as the main judge siting up on his perch, you can hear the players grunting as they hit the ball, even the ball boys have a very important job and take it very seriously. We watched a couple women's matches and a men's match between a swiss and an aussie. The crowd gets very involved, cheering loudly, but as soon as play is about to begin you could hear a pin drop.

Wednesday I took it easy... went into Altona so I could walk along the beach one last time and look at what I call the upside down trees, and relaxed. They call Altona Altuna because when the tide is out there is a stench from the seaweed baking in the sun. It was burning my nostrils that day. Derek picked up fresh oysters at the market so we had those and the tuna for dinner. So fabulous! We hung out and chatted, drinking some wine (surprise!). And right now I sit in the airport waiting to board my flight (it's delayed... surprise again!) because the previous flight was late arriving. I have my fingers crossed that the three hours in LA will give me time to make my connection. I'm ready to be home.

The Mountains are Smaller

Sunday it was early to rise for the 2.5 hour drive out to the Grampians. Australians are very serious about driving when you're tired... there a signs all along the freeway as well as power napping areas. The Grampians is a national park west of Melbourne and was listed on the National Heritage List for its outstanding natural beauty. We stopped at The Gap Vineyard for a quick wine tasting before heading to Wonderland to begin our hike. We walked up a beautiful mountainside which contained more steps within the rock than the trails I'm used to in the Rockies. There was a narrow alleyway called Silent Street to navigate and numerous rock faces to climb. The top had a fence all around a peak that juts out over the edge. I made it about halfway out before turning back; the wind was ridiculously strong and felt like it could throw me off balance. And my fear of heights didn't help.

After a quick lunch we stopped at Brambuk, an outdoor centre that offers extensive information on the area's aboriginal culture and history, and the natural environment. It was interesting to find out the aboriginal believed in six seasons and judged the changes in those seasons by the wildlife present and what they were hunting. We took a walk around Fyans Creek Loop and spotted a couple wild emu feeding on the side of the road. They are scary creatures when there is no fence. In the field close by was a large herd of wild kangaroo! One even had a joey in her pouch. The neatest part was they were feeding with three adult deer and a little spotted fawn.

We picked up some homemade fudge in Halls Gap and hit up three more wineries on the way home, Seppelt Great Western, Grampians Estate, and Best's Great Western. The area specializes in mostly whites; cab suav, chardonnay, and riesling, as well as shiraz. The shiraz is considered cool-climate which means that, because of the weather, the fruit doesn't ripen as fully so the taste is more subtle. Exhausted after a day of hiking, we ordered wood-fired pizza and called it a night.

Derek took the day off work today so we went out Port Melbourne and checked out some gourmet food shops... definitely my kind of shopping! We had some delicious thai curry and rice paper rolls for lunch and since it was windy and rainy, headed to the Melbourne Museum. There were some very cool exhibits! We started with the Mind exhibit which covered dreams, emotions, reactions, etc. It talked about how epilepsy used to be considered a mental disorder and how drugs affect neurotransmitters. Next was about the Body and included quite a few plastinated organs and cross sections of an actual human brain. The next exhibit was about the history of Melbourne and a famous horse named Phar Lap who won a lot of races during the 1930s depression and was considered a hero by the Australians. As much as I enjoyed learning about it, it was a little dry.

The Bunjilaka section held the history of the aboriginals and an awesome display called Menagerie that contained sculptures from aboriginal artists throughout Australia. Last but not least was the Science and Life Gallery that contained everything from dinosaur bones to insects to mammals. They had a room full of stuffed animals, and not the cute, fluffy kind. And a lot of spiders, but they were alive. It was a little creepy.

Wine and Water

My favorite part of Australia is the wine! Well, maybe not my absolute favorite... but the selection is pretty cool. Friday morning I was up early to meet my guide for the Yarra Valley wine tour I booked. All of the people on the tour were great. There were five friends from Brisbane, a mom and daughter from South Africa, a guy from Italy named Domingo, and a cool chick from Manchester, UK named Rachel.

We started at a fairly large vineyard called Domaine Chandon, they are sister companies with Moet. Since this was my first ever experience at a winery I was tres impressed at how eager they are to give you wine... for free! The basic rule is you start at the lightest and work through to the more full-bodied, white first and then red. You begin with the sparkling (as long as they're white), move through the whites (usually from reisling to sauvignon blanc to chardonnay), then to the reds (pinot noir to merlot to cabernet sauvignon) including any red sparkling. It all depends on what types of wines that winery produces and you can try one or you can try them all. Your choice.

From there we went to Medhurst, a smaller vineyard with a cute cafe called the Red Shed. They had a fabulous Rose that tasted like fresh strawberries! I'm not much of a white or pink wine drinker but was determined to try new and different things. Next vineyard was De Bortoli, again a slightly larger winery, for lunch. We ordered our lunches then meandered downstairs to pair wines with our meal. This cellar door also had a cheese bar and I had the most amazing meredith goat cheese! It was stored in olive oil with fresh herbs and garlic... so delectably creamy I had to buy some and hope it survives the journey back to Canada. I had the lamb fillet with fresh salsa verda and gnocchi for lunch paired with a Cabernet Sauvignon. The sous chef at this kitchen actually worked directly with Chef Gordon Ramsay! And the food was delicious.

Sticks was next on our list, which I was fairly excited about because I had purchased a bottle of their wine my first day in Australia. I actually bought their "sticky" wine that had been bottled the week previous. Sticky wines are similar to ice wines in their syrup consistency and sweetness but are more fruity and do not need to be served cold. The one I bought is marmalade/kumquat flavored and their first attempt at a sweet wine. Again... I hope it survives the trip. Last but not least was Coombes Farm. Our driver, who shared an overwhelming amount of knowledge about wine and the Yarra Valley with us, works part time at this vineyard. It was my favorite and I bought a bottle of chardonnay and cabernet merlot I plan to try and store for at least a year.

After saying goodbye to my new (and slightly tipsy) friends, Derek, Jodie, and I went for a fabulous Indian dinner in Williamstown. We wandered down the pier and indulged in gelato (pistachio is my weakness). The most exciting part of the evening was after we got back to the house. The dog would not stop freaking out at the wall in the bathroom upstairs and we came to realize there was a possum (we assume) in the ceiling between the first and second floors. After much banging, scratching, and investigating, we heard it scurry across the living room and depart for the evening. Needless to say, I slept with the window closed that night.

Saturday we drove down to Torquay and Bells Bay, home of the annual Rip Curl surf competition. The weather wasn't great but we hung out on the beach with the dog for a while. I debated doing a surf lesson but the waves weren't good that day, breaking very close to the shore. I say that like I'm pro... We had lunch on a patio (very interesting people watching), shopped at some of the outlet stores like Roxy, Quiksilver, Rip Curl, Reef, and Oakley, and headed home. After cooking steaks for dinner and renting a movie, I am happy to report there were no possum sightings.

Things I have learned about Australia:

- it's windy

- it's windy

- it's windy

Penguins... and more

The first tour I'd booked was for the Phillip Island Penguin Parade through Autopia Tours. I left the house at 10am and was picked up downtown. There were 11 of us in total and I spent most of the tour with an israeli lady named Marcella. It was nice because we were able to take pictures of each other. Another drawback to vacationing alone... lots of scenery pictures, but you're never in them.

We stopped for lunch in a little town and the guide brought salad rolls. I thought "Great! I love salad rolls. I hope they have peanut sauce." Yeah... not so much. Salad rolls are actually veggie sandwiches on long buns (some had ham). Who knew things could be so obvious? Next stop was the Maru Fauna Park, a wildlife zoo where most of the animals have been rescued. There were tasmanian devils, dingoes, koalas, wallabies, peacocks, and other random animals. You could feed the population of about 16 kangaroos which included a couple joeys that were born late last year. They would eat right out of your hand... so cool! I also found out it is illegal to touch or hold koalas in Victoria, but not in Queensland.

Woolamai Beach was next but the beach was closed to surfers and swimmers due to extreme conditions, huge waves and rip tides. The weather wasn't great so we walked up and down the huge beach and tried to determine what the clear gelatinous blobs on the beach were (they were not jellyfish but had weird purple organs). Then off to the Nobbies, a huge rock structure off the coast of Phillip Island. There is a boardwalk that twists along the side of the hill with spectacular views of the ocean and rocks, including a naturally made blowhole. All over the hill are penguin burrows and in a couple of them I actually saw chicks. The parent penguins were out in the ocean collecting food for the chicks and those were the ones we would see coming to shore tonight. There was another island called Seal Island where furry seals live. It is too far away to see them with the naked eye but there were binoculars along the boardwalk if you were so inclined to try and spot one.

We drove into the main town on the island, Cowes, for a pizza dinner on the beach. Phillip Island has a population of about 30,000 people but that almost triples during the summer months with tourists and residents with vacation property. It's a fun, little surf town... I imagine it would be a pretty cool place to live. And from there we were headed to the Penguin Parade! They post the time the first penguin was spotted (8:50pm) and the number of penguins (339) seen the night before so you have an idea of what time to expect them. After the typical tourist shop, photo op (pose in front of a screen and they superimpose penguins), cafe, and information area I walked down a boardwalk to the stadium-style seating area. There are no cameras allowed at all because people would use their flash and it would scare the penguins. Silly people.

The first fairy penguin appeared at about 9:05pm and they were so tiny! Only about 8-10 inches tall as opposed to the antarctic penguins I saw at the aquarium that were up to 3 feet tall. They come out in groups and need to avoid stalkers so it takes them a while to get up the courage. They come up on the beach a little then swim back out, come up a little further, stand there for a while, and swim back out. Finally, when they think it's safe, they scurry into the vegetation and wander up to their nests. It was so freakin' cute! Apparently the breeding season started early this year (August instead of October) so the number of penguins coming to shore is dwindling sooner than normal. They only come to shore if they are required to sit on the eggs or feed their chicks. If there are no babies, they stay out at sea where the food is.

I saw about 40 penguins before I had to head back to the tour bus but as I walked up the boardwalk there were three little penguins waddling along beside me the entire time. And when we walked out to the parking lot there were two standing right beside the walkway! Hence the signs to check under your car for hiding penguins before leaving. It was a 2 hour drive back to Melbourne and being the last dropped off, I didn't get back until after midnight. Long day......

Today has been spent relaxing, walking to the grocery store, and I'm making burgers and greek salad for dinner. The difference in prices from Canadian groceries varies. Some things are more expensive ($3.48 for one avocado... no thanks!), and some are cheaper ($1.69 for basil with the root bulb still attached). We might top it off with a trip to Costco... they have 1.5 litre bottles of Yellow Tail wine for $11.99 and orange cheese (an uncommon site in Australia).

Things I have learned about Australia:

- there aren't a lot of trucks, I'm assuming because of high gas prices and small driving lanes. Instead people drive Utes, the front half is a car and the back half is a truck bed.

- Tatts & Pokies is not an advertisement for a tattoo and piercing parlor, it's a casino. Tatts is the lottery or gambling, shortened from the Tattersalla Group Limited who runs the lottery, and Pokies are slot machines.

- penguins stink

Sydney Part II

Sydney is an amazing city. Even from the small portion I saw, I need to say if you ever get the chance definitely come and visit. It is so worth it. Day one of solo adventures started off with coffee and breakfast at Starbucks (it's easy and their flat whites rock). From there I wandered up George Street and checked out some of the shops which range from high end to crappy souvenir shops to grocery stores. Hyde Park was next on the agenda, I wanted to check out where they hold the huge outdoor concerts. I stopped by the Anzac Memorial, a building dedicated to all the soldiers who have fought in the Australian Army, and the Pool of Reflection. They ran out of money while the building was being erected so they sold plaster stars painted with real gold on the ceiling for $2.00 each until they raised enough to finish it. The effect is stunning.

After strolling through Hyde Park I ended up in the Royal Botanical Gardens. There are different areas dedicated to herbs, roses, tropical flowers, australian-based plants, etc. It was very cool until I realized there were bats in the treetops overhead. Not just a couple... I'm talking HUNDREDS of large bats in ALL the trees. Once I convinced myself that no, they were not going to swarm me, I tried to get some cool pics but they look like leaves in a lot of them. So crazy. At the end of the gardens was the Government House, a building of gorgeous stone architecture.

I ended up at the Sydney Opera House again, picked up a $5.00 prawn and avocado salad for lunch, and watched the digeridoo players. I was planning to take the ferry over to the Tarango Zoo but unfortunately Havaianas are not made for long treks and I needed to return to the hotel for bandaids and new shoes. I hopped on the free CBD (downtown) shuttle... seriously, every city should have these. Instead of the zoo, I explored Sydney Wildlife World which contains a huge variety of animals native to Australia. The exhibits started off with invertebrates; spiders, ants, and cicadas, and moved to reptiles; lizards, snakes, and an enormous crocodile (they called him Super Croc). I got to see baby crocodiles hatching out of their eggs... it was so rad! They had a speaker in so you could hear them squawking as well. Nocturnal animals were next; mice, possum, and wombats, then koalas and kangaroos. The koalas are honestly so cute you want to cuddle them and the kangaroos look super cool when they jump. I've never seen anything like it before, especially so close.

I tried to get tickets to a show that night but Sydney takes the night off on Mondays. There was nothing at the Opera House, Wicked and the Oz Circus both had the night off, Al Green was sold out... no luck. So, after another exhausting day of continuous walking, I stopped at a pasta bar to grab some ricotta ravioli, the bottle shop (liquor store) for some vino, and called it a day.

Day two wasn't nearly as exciting. I thought I had bought a ticket to walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge but it turns out the "sky walk" I purchased was actually around the outside of the Sydney Tower. Not that it wasn't thrilling; I got to see the city of Sydney from 880 feet, double the height of the Harbour Bridge. The floor is glass-like in a couple spots and for someone who is scared of heights (me) it took a little while to get used to. I finished off my trip with lunch on the water at Darling Harbour and flew back to Melbourne.

Things I have learned about Australians:

- they are honestly and truly friendly

- even though they are speaking english, I have a harder time understanding them than most mexicans speaking spanish

- they kinda remind me of newfies (I mean that in the best way possible)

Sydney Part I

Getting to Sydney was an adventure in itself... we ended up missing our flight by minutes because of not one thing in particular, but a number of small occurrences. The positive thing is we ended up meeting a greek dance troupe in the airport lounge on their way to Canberra who were very interesting to talk to. We were even invited for dinner next Sunday! Because we were starving by the time we got there, we had steak at the hotel then wandered through the nearby streets. Our hotel was located in Chinatown and it being the first night of the Sydney festival, there was a huge street market set up. I had custard filled pancakes at one booth and a neck massage at another.

Saturday was jam packed with sightseeing and a ton of walking. Derek, Jodie, and I started at McDonald's for brekky (they have amazing cappuccinos!) then to Paddy's Market which was right across the street and full of fresh fruits and veggies and a ridiculous amounts of shopping booths. Next was Darling Harbour, where the Sydney Convention Centre and 3D Imax theatre live, and the Australian Maritime Museum. They had a very cool exhibit on mythical sea creatures like mermaids, sea dragons, and giant octopus, as well as historical surfing exhibits with old surfboards and a Bondi Beach scrapbook from the 70s. We toured a very old boat, the James Craig, which ran strictly on wind power and took about 16 weeks to sail between Australia and Tasmania. The current ferry takes 14 hours.

Next stop was the Sydney Fish Market for lunch. We shared a seafood platter that contained fresh oysters, scallops, crabmeat, fish, shrimp, and squid. The market was super busy and I can see why... the prices were great and the seafood was caught either that day or the day before. We wandered through an area called The Rocks were the first settlers landed on Australia 240 years ago. It was a really funky part of town with yet another weekend street market (although this one contained nicer stuff than the typical markets) and cool cafes and pubs. We had a pint at the Mercantile Hotel which was named Sydney's best Irish pub the last two years running. Then it was off to the famous Sydney Opera House, gorgeous and definitely a sight to be seen. We took the ferry back to the hotel since we had been walking six hours in the 30+ degree heat and jumped in the rooftop pool (which was actually on the 8th floor and freezing!).

We headed out to the Spanish Quarter for dinner and ended up at a hidden gem called Mamma's. We each had a delicious pizza and shared a $17.50 bottle of wine (very cheap for a restaurant in Australia). The Covern Garden Hotel is where we stopped for drinks on the way back to the hotel and Derek was so excited they had karaoke. It's probably a good thing the singing queue was full... almost everyone that went up was a really good singer. That would have been embarrassing!

Today we took the train to Bondi Beach and relaxed for the day. It was ridiculously busy, chock full of people for one end to the other. Jodie was very happy she got to see the guys on Bondi Rescue, a popular australian reality show about drowning rescues. We went for noodles for dinner (ramen and udon at a funky little japanese place) and Derek and Jodie caught a plane back to Melbourne. I leave Sydney on Tuesday so I have a couple days to adventure on my own...

Things I have learned about Australia:

- the sun is different. Even after putting on SPF 60 once and SPF 30 twice, I still got a sunburn today.

- tons of restaurants advertise BYO (bring your own) for wine and charge a small corkage fee.

- beer is expensive. Actually, everything is expensive (except wine).

Exploring

The last couple days have been full of exploring what the city of Melbourne has to offer. Tuesday my parents finally departed, albeit an hour later than scheduled with a delayed flight out of LA as well. I think they made it home after 23 hours. I stuck around the area that Derek and Jodie live in, Altona. After walking about 20 minutes I came to the Esplanade, the road that runs along the beach. At first it was mostly rocks and seaweed and since the tide was out, there were a lot of kids hunting for treasures left by the sea. I wandered along Altona beach until I reached the sandy part... it was littered with jellyfish and and some of them were huge! I've seen jellyfish in Mexico but they were nothing like these large, blue blobs of disgustingness. I wandered down Altona Pier and hung out on the beach for a while. Even though the sun is out, it's quite windy on the water so you don't realize that you're getting a sunburn because it's rather cool. I did manage to burn my back a bit... as I've already stated; the hardest part of vacationing alone is trying to put sunscreen lotion on your own back.

Wednesday, I took the train to Chapel Street and St. Kilda. Chapel Street consists of shopping, restaurants, more shopping, and more restaurants. There were some cool little sides streets with funky record shops but I found it very expensive. Apparently this is where the rich and famous go when they visit Melbourne. I tried to take a tram to St. Kilda... thought I would save my feet a bit for more walking. Needless to say, I don't have a great sense of direction to begin with and it's even worse on the other side of the world. I stopped at a tram station only to pull out my trustworthy map (yet again... it's starting to get dog ears) and realize I was headed in the opposite direction. So, I decided to walk. I stopped for lunch at a cafe called The Banff (yes, I was excited) and had a tomato and bocconcini pizza and a glass of shiraz for $10. Yum! Things to see in St. Kilda were: the St. Kilda pier (the end is a breakwater that is home to penguins but I didn't see any), Luna Park (roller coasters and a very cool entrance), and more shopping and restaurants. I question how they all stay in business but in a city of almost 4 million plus probably a million tourists at any given time, do I need to ask? We went to Lygon Street for dinner and the restaurant owners try to entice you by offering so many free things when you walk by. We settled on an italian place, Sel en Pepe, that gave us free bruschetta, no corkage, and our first drinks on the house.

Today was super fun! I ventured down to the Old Melbourne Gaol (it is pronounced jail). It started housing criminals in 1845 and there's been 135 people hanged there, including the infamous Ned Kelly. The police watchtower was actually in use until 1994. It was a very cool building full of information about the criminals that were housed there. It was amazing what people were imprisoned for back then. One guy was given solitary confinement for things like whistling in his cell too early in the morning and tapping on the wall. Children as young as 9 were put in jail for vagrancy! Afterwards, I took the free tourist shuttle to the Queen Victoria Market on the hunt for a meat pie. My growling stomach gave in before I could find one and I settled on a sandwich and a skinny flat white (non-fat cappuccino but better). I wandered for a couple hours, purchasing olives, prosciutto, and fresh mozzarella. I also sampled numerous wines at the little wine shop. Hey... they kept asking!

I met my brother at the Melbourne Aquarium for the afternoon and thank goodness we had a 2 for 1 coupon or it would have cost $65... ouch! They have a huge penguin display on over the summer (here... not in Canada). The aquarium was amazing! I fell in love with the seahorse. There were all kinds of tropical and freshwater fish, sharks, stingrays, and jellyfish. So cool! We stopped at a pub for a pint, my first one since arriving, and it was delicious.

Things I have learned about Australia:

- in the suburbs the postman delivers the mail by driving a small motorcycle down the sidewalk

- bottles are not returned for a refund, they are recycled with the rest of the paper and plastic

- almost everything comes in smaller sizes; deodorant, salsa, gum. I even saw mini asparagus at the market yesterday.

The First Few Days

My first couple days in Melbourne have been busy... I was pretty exhausted when I got here, but we headed out for a drive around the city so Derek could show me the sites. We stopped in Williamstown for lunch at a chicken chain called Nando's (quite delicious) and went to Dan Murphy's, the main liquor store. The variety of Australian wine was endless! My dad was very impressed by the $2.99 bottle... it actually wasn't too bad, I've had worse. We cooked a flank steak dinner at the house and I struggle to stay awake until 9pm.

The next morning I'm up at 6:30am, which seems to be the norm so far, but it's nice to have some time to myself. It's my parent's last day here so we head out to the Queen Victoria Market. It is amazing! They have tons of booths that sell everything from wooden carvings to socks to work clothes. There is also a fantastic deli section with fresh seafood and meat, pasta and olives, and fruit and vegetables. This place puts any other market I've seen to shame... I'm going back on my own in a few days just to wander around! And they have way better prices than the supermarket or shops in the city.

Next is Little Vietnam for some lunch and a stop at an asian market. It is ridiculously busy with people shouting constantly. They have bowls of sliced fruit on all the stands for tasting and the largest prawns I've ever seen. We stop at Safeway on the way home so my mom can pick up Tim Tams to bring back to Canada. They have 8 different kinds! Black forest, cookies and cream, mint, honeycomb... We dine on fresh oysters and rack of lamb for what is supposed to be my parent's last dinner here.

Derek and I drive my parents to the airport the following morning and since he has to go to work, I take the train into the city. I wander around downtown Melbourne for the day and there are people everywhere! It's a very cool city with amazing old architecture, beautiful parks, and tons of shopping. Graffiti is considered art here and I discover a lane covered in tags from different artists and amazing spray painted pictures. I meet Jodie when she is done work; we grab a bubble tea and jump on the train home. It's then we get the call that my parents are coming back. They sat in the plane for five and a half hours before they decided not to take off due to a faulty fuel line and they are leaving tomorrow. Talk about Panchuk luck!

Things I have learned about Australia:

- dollar stores are called Reject Shops and you can get a bottle of water for 60 cents (most stores charge about $3.00)

- there are public toilets everywhere and they are clean

- lanes are small, like back alleys, but they contain some of the coolest shops and cafes

Getting to Melbourne

The adventure begins in the Calgary airport... With the failed terrorist attempt on Christmas Day there are extra security measures in place for US bound flights and since I am flying through LA, I am only allowed one small carry on bag. Considering this was going to be an 18 hour flight in total, I jammed as much as I could into my laptop bag and had to check everything else.

I arrive at the airport 3 hours before take-off and am through security and customs in a half hour. Hmmm... that was easy. What to do now? I chat with a woman from Frankfurt now living in LA with her husband who is in the music business. He was stuck in Amsterdam for three days at Christmas. Our flight ends up arriving an hour late from Toronto due to weather and after they clean the plane we take off almost 2 hours late.

Ironically, the guy seated across the aisle from me is on the same flight to Melbourne. When the plane lands we jump off and run to the Qantas desk in the international wing at LAX. The plane has already departed and it's too late to get on the 2350h flight to Sydney. He tells us to head back to Air Canada and they'll take care of us. But our luggage will remain at the airport over night and be on the plane tomorrow for our 2305h flight to Melbourne... stuck in LA with no luggage.

Air Canada puts me up in the Westin LAX for 2 nights so I don't have to check out early and gives me vouchers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I guess I can't complain too much... it is -22 in Calgary. The hotel is gorgeous with Starbucks coffee in the room and excellent guest services. They have a list of free "in case you forgot something" items so I ask for a curling iron, deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, and curling iron. I purchase a pair of $18.99US Havianas from the guest shop (I find out they sell for $25AUD here so it's not too bad) and head to Manhattan beach for the day on the $3.00 shuttle.

My flight to MEL departs on time that night and I think someone must like me because I end up in premium economy with not one but TWO seats (a window and aisle). I've never flown international and it was a treat... it's true that you get what you pay for. The seats recline and have footrests, I am indulged with two fluffy pillows and sheep's wool blankets, one armrest contains a TV and the other a tray. We are given our comfort kits (an eye mask, toothbrush, and toothpaste), fed dinner (I had the poached mahi mahi in a spinach cream sauce with roasted potatoes, and baby peas, pineapple upside down cake, and a mini bottle of red wine), and put to bed. I sleep for 8 hours!

I awake around 4am Melbourne time, which would be 10am in Calgary the previous day. Between watching a couple new release movies and enjoying a spanish frittata for breakfast, the rest of the flight flies by (bad joke) and I am in Melbourne in a few more hours. Customs and security are a gong show with 2 flights from Asia landing at the same time as us but after an hour I hear my brother call my name and realize I have arrived. Now to get out of the clothes I've been wearing for three days and start enjoying my holiday.