Trip stuff

I'm in my first full day in Perth. Had lunch today with Jonnene's parents and her brother, David. It's warmish here and a tad humid, but then it IS summer in Australia.

The trip out was fairly uneventful but every one of my flights were late leaving which didn't matter all that much since I was on each plane and I was going wherever it was going. Every time, however, the pilots made up for the lateness of the takeoffs and hot-footed it to their destinations, where we either arrived early or only a few minutes late. So it wasn't bad in that respect. Dad and my step-mother dropped me off at the airport in Longview, Texas to start the trip. Arrived at DFW and had no problems making it to another terminal to catch my flight to Los Angeles. I tried to sleep as much as I could to offset the future jetlag that surely would be encountered (so far, no worries there...so far).

I hung around at LAX just watching people. I already had my boarding pass and my bag was already forwarded to the Qantas flight. When we got on the plane, I was happy that I had a seat about midway on the plane just over the wing. In the last two trips to Oz I always found myself in the last section of the plane which I wasn't ever really pleased with. So I was on seat 51K, the window seat on the right side of the 747. Unfortunately, seat 50K was broken...not that the passenger sitting in it could tell, but the seat back was realitively loose (so it moved around every time the passenger moved around), as was the tray table in front of me. It stayed in place but wasn't tight against the back of the seat. A little annoying but it could be dealt with. Watched "The Break-Up", "Superman Returns" and "My Super Ex-girlfriend" (I'm sorry, but Uma Thurman is NOT attractive to me) on the Qantas enertainment system along with a couple of documentaries and, of course, hours of watching the little GPS-styled maps of my flight in real time. I also put in about 4-5 hours of sleep in that 14.5 hour flight over the Pacific (my seventh crossing of the Big Water) and did a couple of "laps" on the plane to stretch my legs.

My plane arrived in Melbourne about 10 minutes early after leaving LAX about 25 minutes late. I'm always amazed at where I am when I fly into Australia...I'm literally astounded that I'm on the other side of the world. It never gets old to me. The weather greeting me started out sunny but became overcast before I ever left the airport to go to downtown Melbourne. But before I got on the Skybus I took the time to change clothes, store my bag in a secure place, and get some of my US money exchanged for Aussie cash. Right now the exchange rate is roughly 77 US cents to one Aussie dollar, still good for me in that regard but I remember when it was 62 cents on my first trip in 2003. That would have been sweet for this trip.

Anyway, I boarded the Skybus to the Central Business District (CBD) or downtown of Melbourne since I had arranged my flights to allow me about 4 hours to spend roaming around one of my favorite large cities of the world (Munich, in Germany, is another one). I figured it would be 18 months at the soonest before I visited it again so I wanted to take in one more look. My main target was the Queen Victoria Market, located just a block or two north of the CBD, and I lucked out in that I would be there on one of the three days it is open during the week. I left the bus at the Spencer Street Station, headed up King Street and angled thru the Flagstaff Gardens, my first time in that park. You could tell it was summertime....everything was green and flowers were out, totally opposite of the other times I've been in Melbourne during the fall and winter seasons. After I got to the Market, I browsed up-and-down every aisle, went through the marketers booths and spent some time in the garden-fresh part of the market and enjoyed the smells of all the fresh produce and other items. I had lunch in a food court nearby, eating at an Indian restaurant where Jonnene and I had eaten back in June of '05. I had the hot lamb curry...very tasty and filling.

Then I spent the rest of my time walking all through the CBD. I did fine on my feet, despite having done that half-marathon just 36 hours earlier in Shreveport. But a lot of walking will wear you out and I was thankful for the cloudy day. If the sun had been out, it would have cooked me. I dropped into a few stores, shot some video, and checked out a couple of art exhibits at Federation Square. Around 4pm, I got back on the Skybus and headed to the Melbourne Airport to prepare for a couple more flights to get me to Perth.