G'day all.

I came to find out, after I'd been in Australia a couple of days that "mate" is a gender specific term. All these years I thought everyone said "G'day, Mate" to everyone else in Australia. Not true. Males are mates. Females are sheilas, but I don't think any one says "G'day, Sheila" unless her name is actually Sheila. From what I understand, and anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, a female can say "G'day mate" to a male, but not vice versa.

Look at that. I've digressed before I've even started.

3:30 am the day of my departure came very early. Not that 3:30 am needs any help being early. Friday morning I got up and made sure, double, triple, quadruple and quintuple checked everything as I paced through the house making sure I hadn't forgotten anything I couldn't just buy while I was down there. I probably ended up with an extra ten pounds in my luggage in the last ten minutes. Oooooo... I might need this brick for something! They might not have bricks in Australia!

So I get to the airport and check in to ... damn... LAX. They don't have customs at Tulsa International Airport (there's an oxymoron for you), so I had to pick up my luggage at LAX, clear customs there and recheck it.

The 3 hour flight to LAX was uneventful as well as clearing customs. I guess I look squeaky clean enough. Either that or nerdy enough.

I got well "lubricated" at the airport watering hole during the three hour layover. I knew I had a looooooooong 15 hour flight ahead of me. Met some nice people at the bar. One fellow told me a good place to go shopping in Sydney. Not that I ever made it there, but that was thoughtful of him.

On the plane I had the aisle seat. The middle and the window seats were both filled, too. Luckily the "cabin attendant" told us the plane was not full and one of us could move if we wanted. I nominated the guy in the middle seat and he quickly accepted. He ended up having an entire center row to himself.

So, the lady in the window seat and I got acquainted. She was going to visit her boyfriend in Sydney. Talk about long distance relationships.

She and I would get up and "do laps" together periodically. It's not good to sit on an airplane for long periods of time so we would get up and walk around the plane. It was good when we did it together so we both got in and out of the row at the same time.

I also napped off and on. Once I woke up and looked over at the window seat and it was EMPTY! Huh? What? I thought as I shook off the sleep. I SWEAR she was there when I fell asleep. How long had I been asleep? Time has no meaning on a flight like this. Anyway I got up and went to the restroom, came back, and there she was! Back in her seat!

"OK. I SWEAR you weren't there when I left for the restroom!"

"No," she laughed, "I wasn't."

"But how did you get out when I was asleep?"

We had the row directly in front of an exit aisle and apparently she discovered she could crawl over the back of her seat and get out if she needed to without bothering me. I woke up once to catch this maneuver in action. I don't know that graceful or shy would be adjectives I'd use to describe her. Considerate, absolutely, but the other two....

I couldn't believe that Qantas didn't have laptop power sources on their planes. You're stuck in the air for 15 hours. Seems they should have power for laptops. Oh well. The lady next to me and I watched the movies and Seinfeld, etc. We would also be REALLY obnoxious when we would sing along with the audio programs. Ok .... maybe we just lip synced.

They did have one neat feature on the screen in between movies or shows. The would put up a graphic that showed a map with where we were in our flight path, airspeed, altitude, local time at place of departure, local time at place of arrival, time and distance flown and time and distance remaining. Info geek that I am, I just loved that.

So I land at 10:30 pm Sydney time on Saturday. My rowmate and I wish each other a G'day and head our separate ways.

Customs, again, no prob. Or in Australian venacular, no worries.

I catch a cab to my hotel and check in about midnight.

I head down to the lobby to check out the brouchures on Sydney tours. I wasn't tired. I was excited. I was on a whole 'nother continent, 10,000 miles away from home.

Oh my God. I'm on a whole 'nother continent, 10,000 miles away from home.