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Los Angeles to Sydney – G’Day, Sydney

On Monday night, we packed our bags again and drove back to LAX to catch our flight to Sydney. The entire security process took about five minutes—no immigration control, no passport stamp, bags were simply X-rayed and we didn’t have to go through the body scanner nonsense. Morale of the story—entering the US is hard but leaving the country is piece of cake.

At check-in, one of the Quantas employees had advised us to grab a bite to eat before going to the waiting room because there wasn’t much past the security checkpoint. She was right. Empty hallways reminded me of a hospital and the gates had nothing but seats. It was just strange, I thought LAX was busier than that.

We had learned at the last minute that we wouldn’t fly the A380 considering all the recent security issues. The aircraft was switched for a Boeing 747. Planes are never really comfortable and I was somewhat anxious at the perspective of spending 15 hours over the Pacific Ocean—not that I’m scared of flying but time can drag on forever on board. But hours went by very quickly. By the time we took off, it was already 11 p.m., and we both fell asleep after watching a couple of movies. I woke up when we went through very strong turbulences somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but I dozed on and off for about eight hours.

When I woke up for good, I realized we were only a couple of hours from the coast of Australia and I sighed with relief. Almost there.

The immigration process was pretty straightforward at the airport, probably because we had applied for the Electronic Travel Authorization from Canada. However, all bags were checked for food products because Australia has strict quarantine laws and that took forever.

We were eventually cleared and walked out under a clear blue summer sky. Sydney, here we are!

(Not) Fresh of the Plane
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Zhu

French woman in English Canada.

Exploring the world with my camera since 1999, translating sentences for a living, writing stories that may or may not get attention.

Firm believer that nobody is normal... and it’s better this way.

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