Well, Australia is a "Bloody Long Way" Just like all the signs say. I have returned home to Casa de Tronster and realized I have not updated in a couple of weeks. The nerve of the webmaster huh. Well, here is an update.
My return from Australia could have gone a little smoother. For one thing, it is a 13 hour flight from Melbourne to LAX. The airlines would not let me carry the carry on items I had carried when coming to Australia, so I had to check an additional bag. Great, I had to purchase a TSA approved lock in Melburne's airport. There goes the last $20 Aussie dollars I had. So I get on the flight. I was thinking I had a short turn around in LA, so I hurried through the Passport control and customs situation as quickly as I could. Got my luggage off the carousel and had to re-check to the airlines. No problem. Two pieces, quickly through and I am off. The good news was I was in the same terminal I would need to be to get on my next flight to Dulles in Washington DC. Well, I pull out my boarding pass, and to my astonishment, I had 6 hours until boarding. 6 HOURS!! Now what? Well, I go to Americans Ticket counter to see about an earlier flight that I could catch. I was informed there is no earlier flights, but there is one 4 hours after the one I was going to take. Well, that sucks, I will just wait. So I find a place to charge my Iphone and start calling friends back in DC. Board my flight at the appointed time, in my appointed time slot. To my horror, I am stuck in the middle of a family of 5. Mom. dad, and 3 kids, all under 6 years old. I am thinking, Here comes a 5 hour flight listening to screaming young kids. Awesome!! Turns out, they were well behaved and I even enjoyed playing Peek a boo with one of them for the last 20 minutes of the flight.
As I am waiting in DC for my luggage, I see my first piece come down. I grab it and wait for piece number two. And I wait. And I wait. 45 minutes, nothing. I go to the Luggage claim service to begin my Lost luggage claim. She askes me to check the other carousel, it might have came up on the other one. (Evidently there were a few flights that landed close to one another and some of the bags were mixed up) So I check it out and return to the office and explained that I am still missing my luggage. We begin the process and one of the handlers walks up and informs me that my luggage arrived on an earlier flight. Great news, I have all my bags and now I can go home and attempt to get some sleep.
But wait.......
If my bags arrived on an earlier flight, why couldn't my butt be on the flight? We will never know the depth of the conspiracy to delay a return of the Tronster.
