It Has Begun

Day One
9th July 2012
Location: Adelaide, Air, Sydney
After a lovely breakfast with my family at Billy Baxters, they drove me to the airport! The countdown was over. I was starting my holiday to America. While waiting to board the plane, there was one problem - I could picture my luggage keys on my bed at home. After a mini panic, I was reassured from loved ones that I wouldn't have been the first to do this and there are ways around it. Surely someone can break a lock! Nothing I can do about it now. I said goodbye to my family and friends as I walked down the ramp onto the plane and sat through a very painless and fast flight. I picked my luggage up from the baggage reclaim area in Sydney and located a gentleman working for Qantas who broke my locks for me {phew!!}. Shortly after this I met Jamie in Sydney after his time in South Africa. We caught a shuttle bus to our hotel {via Bondi Beach}, or at least we thought we thought we were going to our hotel! As we walked into the reception area and started checking in, we were informed that we were at the wrong hotel. There were two hotels on the same street with the same name. After a 10 minute walk we found our proper hotel and checked in. Jamie and I ate dinner in our room and had an early night for a big day tomorrow. As I got ready for bed I found a lovely note from Mum ironed into my pyjamas { it made me smile}!

Day Two
10th July 2012
Location: Sydney, Air, Seoul, New York
This morning we had a prearranged wake up call at 3:45am and caught a taxi from our hotel to the airport {my first taxi drive!}. Before checking into our flight and going through the security check, a lovely gentleman who worked in the airport took a photo of Jamie and I in the airport. This man was very excited to be using a 'flash' camera like Jamie's and was so enthusiastic, especially for this time of the morning! It wasn't long until I was exposed to duty free shopping! Although it was very tempting i kept all my money in my pockets except for buying some new locks for my suit case. The following flight went for ages. Jamie managed to get some sleep while I spoke with a man travelling to London with an over 60's cricket team, who are scheduled to play England. Impressive! 9 hours later we arrived in Seoul where we bought our first thing with US dollars - a water bottle! After having a delay of half an hour we boarded for our next flight bound for New York. Although this flight was 4 hours longer than the previous one it seemed to go faster due to more sleep. We flew into New York and saw the amazing city lights from the sky. I went through my first immigration process {giving fingerprints and photos} - this was Jamie's third time after South Africa. We collected our bags and found an information desk which directed us to the air train. The air train took us to a shuttle point from where we were taken to our airport hotel. The hotel smelt digusting but we were greatful we had a bed to sleep in for a couple hours instead of a plane seat.  Today went very long {literally}. With very little sleep and gained hours in our day {due to time zones} we were very tired and after getting to our hotel around midnight we knew we would only get in a few hours sleep before we were up again to fly to Tampa tomorrow. I can understand why jet lag decides to visit. After that though, we don't have to fly for a little while. Yay!