6/12-6/14: Getting there

I left San Francisco on the night June 12th, 2006. That morning, I had a send-off party coupled with the United States' first game of World Cup 2006 vs. the Czech Republic. Though the US team confirmed my greatest fears, getting pummeled 3-0, it was good to see people one last time, especially my classmates that will have left Berkeley by the time I get back. After scrambling to get my samples FedEx'ed off without customs throwing a hissy fit, I finally got on BART to SFO, and then flew to Sydney by way of LAX.



My 15-hr flight was pretty relaxed and uneventful, though I didn’t get more than 3 hours of sleep on the plane after having only gotten 1.5 hours of sleep the night before. I got bumped into “Economy Plus” (an extra 4” of legroom) courtesy of the Federal Government and its insistence on purchasing unrestricted fares. It’s pretty clear why United is going bankrupt, though. My plane was dressed in 50’s era décor, and the central movie projector (we didn’t get personalized screens) looked like it was receiving its feed from Bangladesh.

At 6 am, we arrived in Sydney, with the sun barely tinting the horizon and the city lights still outlining the coastline. At the Sydney baggage claim, I assembled with the other 20 people in my program, and we hopped on a short flight to Canberra. The flight was so short, in fact, that it took longer to board and unboard the plane than to actually fly there. Actually, we had to take a bus across the tarmac from the gate to our plane, but the bus ride lasted all of 15 seconds much to our amusement. You wonder how lazy the Australians think we Americans are. Anyway, at 11 am local time, 25 hours after I left Berkeley, we touched down in Canberra.