December 20-21-22 (Actually not certain about 21st… see below)

Halfway around the world is a long, long time to sit on an airplane. Monday night we made our way from DFW to LAX for 3.5 hours, then boarded a Qantas 747 for the 13.5 hour overnight flight from LA to Sydney. I do not know how this happened, but we lost Tuesday. It’s just gone. We can’t find it. We left LA on Monday night and we landed in Sydney on Wednesday morning. Tuesday just evaporated. We will search for Tuesday on the way back.

First time on Qantas. The cabin crew was friendly as cocker spaniels and waited on us with good grace, anticipating our every need. When is the last time you could say that about a US domestic cabin crew? Evidently the QA cabin crew has never associated with US domestic crews. Since we departed LAX at bedtime, we were issued pajamas and slippers. Guess you could say we had a “Pajama Day”. (The Gaston girls in Virginia know what that means.) We arrived in Sydney about 10 am, so we just missed seeing Oprah. I am heartsick.

Susan’s girlhood friend, Lindsay Parsons (Lunt) picked us up at the airport and gave us the city tour and we had lunch at the Balmoral Beach Bather’s Pavilion Restaurant. She is an ex-pat from Kansas City and has lived in Australia for 20 years.  Despite her mid-western roots, she has an Australian accent and has become irrevocably imbedded in the Aussie lifestyle. It obviously suits her well.

We forced ourselves to stay up all day. After an excellent gourmet Chinese dinner at Spice Temple, we checked into our Sydney home for the next 10 days at the Westin and fell into a real bed for the first time since Sunday night in Ft. Worth.

First day in Sydney a success.