Slow Start

We took off on the first leg of our trip Wednesday evening. Thanks to Jennifer for driving us to the airport. Our flight to LA was overbooked and they were offering a free R/T ticket anywhere in the U.S., free overnight hotel accomodations, plus first class seats on the next day's 6:30 am flight to anyone volunteering to give up their seat. We were tempted by the offer, but decided to stick to our original itinerary which gave us an overnight in LA before embarking on the long flight to Sydney. They eventually got all the volunteers they needed.

After boarding, the pilot announced that there was a problem with closing the entry door, and mechanics were working on it. We had to sit in the completely full plane while they worked on the door. We finally took off nearly an hour after our scheduled departure. But don't feel too sorry for me. I had used upgrades on this flight so we were sitting in roomy seats with flight attendants serving us chilled drinks during the wait. The 14 hour leg to Sydney will not be so comfy.

We had nice accomodations at the Marriott here in LA. We extended our stay so we can relax and enjoy the hotel instead of sitting in LAX all day waiting for our evening flight to Sydney.

Bye for now. The next update will probably be after we've checked in at Cairns.