We ended up walking to the airport in Christchurch in the cold, trying to hitch a ride through the suburbs. And we actually picked up a ride eventually. We spent the night in the airport along with a lot of other people and got up around 4 a.m. for our 6 o'clock flight to Sydney. We arrived in Sydney at 8 a.m. Sydney time with a 13 hour layover until our next flight. So Joel and I decided to take the day and spend it in Sydney, while Scott decided to rest and hang out in the airport.
Joel and I went straight to Darling Harbour to check out the place in the day time and to see if there were any World Cup games being shown on the FIFA FanFest giant screen. From there we stopped at the Star City Casino on our way to the Fish Market to see what was going on there. The casino was huge and really sweet. It had everything you could think of, along with shops and resturaunts, etc. Joel and I wanted to walk around and check out the sport's bar so we had to check our bags and ended up becoming members of the place for free so that we could get our bags checked for free. They ended up giving us $10 for slots and Joel actually won around $25 on his first slot!
From there we hit up the Fish Market which is the second largest fish market in the world in terms of variety and amount. The resturaunts and the seafood shops were incredible and the food smelled so good. There were also bakeries, huge fruit stores, cheese and meat delis, and much more. It was a really cool place to be, not too far from the hubbub of Darling Harbour. It started raining at the Fish Market and our goal was to walk onto the Sydney Harbor Bridge. So we did...
And it downpoured on us. Like really hard. We were completely drenched. Once we got close enough to see the bridge we dropped our bags off at this small little overhang off the side of the road (probably a poor choice, but there really wasn't anyone around) and we took of running for the bridge. When we got there it was clear to us that it was really worth it. We were still able to see a good distance down the harbor and another good view of the Opera House with Circular Quay to the right. The bridge walk was really great. But we got soaked...totally worth it though. We picked up our bags and got some Starbucks to dry off and then headed back to the airport, which we walked to from the clesest bus station to save a ton of money. Then we discovered that we needed to fly out of the domestic terminal and we walked about three miles out there.
Our flight left from Sydney to Brisbane at 9 p.m. to connect with our LA flight which was the next day. once into Brisbane we set up camp and slept in the airport for the second straight night. It actually wasn't too bad of a night. The total layover time was almost 14 hours by the time we left the ground. Our final moments in Brisbane were good. I knew I was going to miss Australia a lot so I was just trying to soak it all in. Our flight left at about noon on Friday the 9th. After about a 12 hour flight, we landed in Los Angeles at 8:30 in the morning on Friday the 9th. So it was just a huge never ending day...it basically will last around 40 hours long for us. And unfortunately I didn't sleep very much in the plane.
So Scott and I are here in LA. Joel went on to Chicago to visit his sister. Scott was able to find a place for us to stay through a connection he had and by the continued generosity that we seem to continually recieve we have an apartment in West Hollywood all to ourselves. We have done nothing today since coming in...just sitting around, watching TV, eating...we haven't done nothing in a long time and it feels great, though really foreign and almost wrong. But we are just really tired. Been dozing on and off.
Alright, well good as gold. We have Saturday, Sunday and Monday here. Tomorrow we hit up Hollywood. Sunday going to a baseball pre All-Star game in Anaheim. it should be a good relaxing few days. Good reflection time as well. I will fly to Chattanooga on Tuesday morning and then will be off to Florida on Wednesday night.
So the adventure continues...each day, one day at a time.
-b garrison
"and got some Starbucks to dry off"
ReplyDeletehahaha
thanks for documenting your journey and adventures!