Well, I can't say that we had the most uneventful trip ever in terms of transport. It seems as though everytime that Jenee and I fly somewhere, other that between Florida and Texas, her bags are mysteriously lost and we have to wait at least a day for them to come. This trip was no exception.
As we were debarking the plane from Sydney there comes an anouncement over the PA. Would Mr. Nathan Stevens please see ground staff upon departing the plane. Jenee and I look at eachother and assume that Nathan is me. Sure enough, it was a message for us and it turned out that our bags hadn't even made it onto the plane, they were still stuck in LAX. What amazed us was that our plane from DFW was parked 2 spaces from our plane to SYD. Less than say 200m and yet BOTH of Jenee's bags didn't make it? Whatever... We are so used to it now that we have learned to pack spare clothes in our carry-on luggage to avoid this nuances.
From the international flight we proceed through customs to collect my bags and then head to the baggage desk only to be told that we actually werent meant to make it through customs as our connection to Adelaide was actually from the international terminal. So, we had to get stamped out of the country at the "special" customs desk, and then escorted back through the customs lines (where I am sure everyone was wondering what these poor people had done to get kicked out of Australia in less than 30 minutes) and headed to our new transfer point inside the international terminal.
The redeeming factor for Qantas was once we had arrived in Adelaide, and had a wonderful reunion with Mum and Dad, the very helpful lady at the baggage desk gave us both a Travellers Pack consisiting of toiletries and shorts and a t-shirt which are just a little shy of small and see-through so of course you cant actually wear them anywhere of use except in the privacy of your own bedroom...lol
The trip on the way home was actually more fun. Admitedly, since we were tired, stressed and emotional, some of the happenings seemed worse that actually were. Firstly in Adelaide, we arrived at the airport with plenty of time only to be beaten by a huge tour group. We stood inline for 40 minutes an only progressed a few steps. We ended up being called ahead and then the conter assistant took forever. We litteraly made our plane by a hairs breadth and only had a few moments to say our goodbyes which in someways was probably a good thing as I think we were all tearing up.
When we got to Melbourne, we quickly transfered to the international terminal. As we were proceeding through the entrance a cocky security guard stopped us and weighed our carry-on items. He then proceeded to tell us that they were overweight and we would have to check them. Back to the check-in lines and another long wait we checked my carry-on and headed back to the international gate. We were so mad because we had read all of our documents and nowhere was it stated that you could only have 15lbs / 7kg for your carry-on from Australia to America. We felt like there was an inconsistency, if not a double standard. Anyway, we got to our plane ok only to realize that we had checked the Tylenol-PM which helped us sleep on the plane. Awesome.
We were very grateful to arrive in LAX to find that all our luggage had made it and there were no further dramas. Reading back through this it seems like I have whined about the whole experience and it would be fair to say we were a little disgruntled if not annoyed but really we have nothing to complain about because the Lord kept us safe and that's all that really matters.
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