Saturday – July 18, 2009 –

Reluctantly today, we had to say goodbye to Australia. Jeff and I had to get up early around 5 a.m., so we grabbed our luggage to head down to the Circular Quay train station. For $AUD 15.20, we bought tickets on the double-decker metro train (that looked like CALTRANS) to Sydney’s airport.

Jeff boarding the train to Sydney airport

After checking in at the airport, our Delta flight left at 9:15 a.m. We flew over the coast of New South Wales as we said goodbye to Oz. Along the journey, we flew over Fiji and had breakfast twice and a snack on the plane.

Unfortunately, our entertainment system was out for the entire 14-hour flight! Thankfully, I had my iPod Touch and could listen to music and watch movies on it. Upon landing in Los Angles, everyone on the flight received $100 vouchers for the trouble.

We touched Saturday morning around 6 a.m. at LAX. Truthfully, LAX is one of the worst airports in the world. Customs and luggage lines are absolutely awful. Additionally, the long security lines always seem to snake outside. After grabbing breakfast, we passed through security and waited for our 10 a.m. flight back to Atlanta. After a long trip across the U.S., Mom and Dad picked us up when our flight arrived in Atlanta around 17:30 p.m. We were tired after about 23 hours in airports across two continents, but were grateful to have had the opportunity to travel down under!