Life Down Under

Our 32 hours of travel, starting with my brother Richard kindly shuttling us to Detroit Airport and ending with a $70 cab ride to Tammy's apartment in Melbourne, went very well.  If you have to fly as far as Australia, paying for first class (or business class) is definitely worth it.  The seats were incredibly roomy and folded out into beds, allowing me to get my first ever significant amount of sleep on a plane.  I think I may've racked up as many as 5 hours of snoozing out of the 15 total that the flight occupied.  But even the other 10 hours were enjoyable, with much of it passed playing Resistance: Burning Skies on my Vita as well as various free games on my laptop.  Vicki watched a couple of movies and seemed to be entertained by them.  Having a power outlet available as part of my seat made a huge difference in keeping me going, electronics-wise.

I had a lengthy afternoon nap today.  We'd arrived at 9:00 a.m. local time (5:00 p.m. on the second day of travel according to our internal clocks) and spent the first several hours walking around Tammy's neighbourhood and grabbing lunch.  Thanks to that nap, I'm still feeling perky as we approach 11:00 p.m., even though Vicki, Tammy and Ryan have all crashed already (Ryan worked a full, 10-hour day).  It should be interesting to see how long it takes before my sleep cycle gets back to what passes for 'normal' for me.

I should soon have some photos to post here to give a sense of what sort of things we're seeing.  I will mention that the stores are quite different down here, at least in terms of brand names.  While McDonald's ('Maccas' here), Subway, EB Games, 7-11 and Burger King (known as 'Hungry Jack's' to Aussies) were all familiar, the vast majority of the signs were for companies I'd never heard of.  My two favourite of the day were Condom Kingdom and Massive Wieners, only one of which, surprisingly, was actually in the sex trade.