It begins

Short note on the trip so far:

Sydney Airport - Crapness the first: our plane arrived very late so we were BORED for ages. The captain continually assured us during the flight that he planned to make up the time so we would arrive as scheduled. I also felt really sick during this stopover, I was worried I was getting the flu but I seem to be ok.

Honolulu - well, a stopover we weren't told about until mid-flight. Fun. It was special to see and feel the atmosphere though, but as we were already running late there was no time to stop. Crapness the second: Kevin managed to lose his passport, our boarding passes, itinerary and luggage tags while we were waiting for our bags. To quote Mr. 'This always happens', "I was holding it in my hand and I probably just forgot I was holding it and dropped it." After 15 minutes of freaking out and informing staff and hunting under carousels, Kevin finds said documentation in the side of his laptop case. New rule #1: Let Jess know where you are stashing important documents, BEFORE you stash them.

Los Angeles - we had 45 minutes before our connection to Portland departed. Strictly speaking we'd already missed it cos you have to check in an hour before departure... I tell Kev that we should run for our connection and then send for our luggage, but instead we sit and wait for it to come through to us. With about 20 minutes before departure we get our luggage and try and find the Alaska Airlines departures. LAX is disgusting, so badly laid out and signposted. And the elevators are unforgivably slow. We get to check in with about 10 minutes before departure, and are of course told that we are too late. The next plane to Portland is in the morning, and Qantas is to put us up in a hotel as it is their fault. We try to find a Qantas customer service desk, but there's nothing but ticket counters with hundreds of people queued up. Kev gets in line and about 30 mintes later gets to talk to someone. There are 4 others from our flight who have also missed their connections, so that was somewhat comforting. After about an hour we get a hotel coupon, and grab a shuttle to the Marriott.

LA part 2 - Crapness at least the third - we get to the Marriott and stagger with our bags to reception, only to be told "Err, I think you have the wrong hotel". There are a few Marriotts about, so the reception girl calls through the the 'financial third party' that they use in these cases to ensure the airports pay for the rooms. The third party informs her that no such booking was made through them whatsoever... We stand around for about 30 minutes and then give up and go to the hotel sports bar and have typical American fare, including muchos fries and bottomless soft drink. We go back to reception and three others in our situation have decided to pay for the rooms and hope for reimbursement, so we do the same. The room was gorgeous but it's already midnight and our flight is at 7am so we have a quick shower then collapse.
Our alarm was set for 4:45am but apparently Kev's watch was only partially set to our new time zone. We wake up at 5:30am and freak. A slip has been pushed under our door to say that Qantas has reimbursed Kev's credit card, so check-out is easy and we quickly get the shuttle bus to the airport. Check in etc is fairly easy, though by the time we get to the gate it's about to close so there was a last minute realisation panic of 'shit we nearly missed it again...' We also had to upgrade to first class cos there weren't any other seats together, so that was nice and only US$50.

Portland - we get to Portland, "the big city with the small town feel", and contact Nathan, Kev's friend who owns a B&B that we'll be staying in up in Olympia, Washington (where the State Capitol building is.) He begins to drive down, a 90 minute drive, but then we decide to hire a car and drive ourselves so we call and let him know. The car is expensive but Sitepoint will cover it.

Olympia - the drive was nice (US radio sucks though) and the B&B is gorgeous. We went out for lunch and dinner with Nathan, Kasey and Hayden (a girl, might be spelled differently) and had a nap in the afternoon. It's soooo hot though, really muggy. Apparently the US is experiencing a record heatwave but it's on its last legs now.

I hope to send updates every few days if interesting things happen. In the meantime, it's snoozeville for me. Kev is also keeping his blog up-to-date with our adventures, so if you want to see his spin on things, check out http://yesimcanadian.com He is also using our travel photos in his blog, so you really should have a squiz. You know you want to.

Jessi