The Missing Day -- My Flight to Australia

So, the night of the second day at Disneyland I started my flight to Australia. Of course this was the first prblem, since I had a mild case of sunstroke from the hot day at Disneyland. Even though I managed to get a shower before the flight at a friend's house (thanks Allie), I was still quite dazed.

Then the flight had to be recalled to the gate (problem #2) because the luggage in the hold had been incorrectly packed and needed to be reshuffled for safety. This delayed the flight about 2 hours.

I found it impossible to sleep on the flight. This wasn't a direct flight to Melbourne. It stopped in Auckland, New Zealand, and everyone had to de-plane for an hour or so layover. So I wandered part of the Auckland airport both sleepy and dazed.

Eventually I arrived in Melbourne the next morning, or should I say the next next morning as the International Dateline was crossed. I managed to find an ATM machine, get some Australian money, and pay for a shuttle to the hotel.

To my surprise (problem #3) the hotel said that my reservations didn't start until the next day! (Later I realized that I had orignally planned to stay in Anaheim the night after going to Disneyland and then fly out the next morning, but I had forgotten that by the time I made reservations for the stay in Anaheim.) Luckily there was a room available, so I stumbled to my room and fell asleep for 15 hours.

I was mildly ill for the rest of my stay in Melbourne, although I thought I was sicker than I was -- I didn't know that formulas for Coke and Pepsi in Australia are different than in the US, so I thought I had some weird mouth/throat/tongue problem (#4)!


 

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