Well, I have finally arrived in the great "down under" and it's wonderful to be back after all these years. The journey was, well, let's say interesting. The 50 minute flight from North West Arkansas to Dallas took a mere hour and three quarters, trying to avoid some bad weather east of Dallas! However, on the leg from Dallas to Los Angeles, I met a fascinating couple who run a ministry near Tulsa, OK, who were on their way to Nauru in the South Pacific. They were amazed that I even knew of the island. I had to tell them that when I was in community theater, I played Corrie Bratter in "Barefoot in the Park" and my leading lady left two weeks later to take up a post as personal assistant to the Governor of Nauru. Small world!!

I found out, once again, on this trip why I hate to fly through or to LAX. On arrival in the Tom Bradley International Terminal, it was to find that all the departure boards had their last listing at 5.55pm (it was, at this time, just after 9pm). Mr Bradley might just want to consider removing his name from any association with that structure. There was no indication on my boarding pass about which was my gate, and the terminal has gates 100 thru 123, with about 100 yards between each gate. Not only was there no indication of which gate we were leaving from, but no ground staff to help, and not a single courtesy phone to call from!! I eventually managed to ascertain that our flight left from gate 123.

Once we started to board, I was fascinated to learn that we were boarding one of the new Airbus A380-800 planes. That's the new "double-decker" plane which seats 800 passengers. That's fine until you reach your destination and are trying to find your bags and then get through customs and immigration!! IT WAS A ZOO!!!!

I finally did get through and the lovely Linda Upfold, the lady who has organized my whole trip, was there to meet me. I had a number of things I needed to get done and she helped me through all of that. Now it's time for bed and a REALLY good night's sleep after my trip, which included a little more than 18 hours of nighttime!

Tomorrow, I spend a day on my own wandering around Sydney and North Sydney. Ther will be some pix!