June 6 - The Day That Never Was

June 6 - The Day That Never Was

We boarded the plane in San Francisco headed for Sydney around 10 PM. We sat near the back of the plane. The plane was very big but our seats seemed cramped. There wasn’t as much leg room as there had been on the previous plane. A few of the people around us seemed to realize the flight was going to be empty and asked if they could change seats. The flight attendants said it would be fine to do that but they needed to do before we took off because other people might grab the seats first. The person behind us decided to move back further which meant the row was now empty. I decided I would take his spot. I wasn’t sure why he left since he already had the seats to himself, but I soon realized it was because little kids were sitting behind him. Throughout the night they kept kicking my chair, but for the most part they were quiet and slept.

We sat on the plane parked at the gate for about 15 minutes. Sri had a little delay getting her seat finalized, but eventually she was able to board. She was supposed to sit 5 rows behind us, but as she walked by I told her she could sit where ever she wanted and asked if she wanted to sit with me. She accepted so for the next 14 hours I was going to have someone to talk to and keep me company.

Everyone was ready to and we headed for take off. It seemed like we were driving a long time. I guess the spot to take off was on the other side of the airport. It must have taken 10 minutes of driving to get there. I thought maybe we were planning on driving the whole way. The pilot revved up the engines and we began speeding down the runway. About 10 seconds in the engines slowed down and we weren’t going very fast.

I assumed there was something wrong. Of course there was. The pilot came on the speaker and said that a malfunction occurred and one of the doors hadn’t been properly shut. We quickly had that squared away and we were ready to go. I guess it wouldn’t have been a good thing for the door to fly open in mid-flight. I was envisioning people being sucked out the door and the plane being ripped apart. Which is ironic because Sri kept saying she’d like the plane to land in the water and be stranded on one of the islands in the South Pacific. I guess similar to the people on the show “Lost.”

After are brief delay we began our journey to Australia. The flight was excellent. For such a long flight there was very little turbulence. There were a few bumps a long the way, but they lasted less than a few seconds at most and they rarely happened at all. Throughout the trip there were a few movies playing. I was hoping we would have individual televisions like they have on Emirates flights, but that wasn’t the case. The movies they showed weren’t very good. I watched “Man on a Ledge,” the other three weren’t any good and I don’t remember what they were. “Man on a Ledge” was pretty terrible. The plot made no sense. The storyline and the characters weren’t developed very well. It seemed like it was a thriller without the thrill. That’s my movie critique for the trip.

I maybe slept about 3 hours on the entire trip. The majority of the time I just talked to Sri. Most of the other people on the plane seemed to be sleeping the whole time, but I wasn’t really very tired. I was able to lay down a lot though across the three seats in our row. She was pretty small so we could lay next to each other and still have a little room as long as I laid on my side. The armrests weren’t very comfortable to lean against though.

We were fed dinner pretty quickly after we took off. I chose chicken and rice. It was pretty bad, but I was starving so I ate it anyway. It did come with a brownie which tasted like a Little Debbie snack, and that was good. We didn’t get lunch, since it was technically early in the morning by this time because of the time zone change. We were given a small sandwich that was as hard as a rock with turkey and cheese and a pecan cookie. The cookie was good, but sandwich wasn’t. Strike two on the meals so far. For breakfast I chose pancakes instead of the omelet. The pancakes were rolled up with apple inside, similar to an apple fritter. It was actually pretty good. It included sausage as well. For the most part breakfast was a decent meal. Throughout the night they served drinks, usually water. I took advantage of that once.

The majority of the flight was in the dark. As we flew west we were flying away from the rising sun. As a result we were traveling forward in time. Although we left at 11:30 PM on June 5, it quickly became 10 PM on June 6. Due to the time change we technically only had about a 5 hour June 6. We will get that back when we return. So even though I didn’t have a June 6, I will get to have an extra long July 30.

As we approached Sydney the sun began to come up. We were able to watch the sunrise through the plane window and I got a few good shots.

As we landed I took a few pictures with Sri on the plane and then before we went our separate ways I took a few more in the airport. Sri had to go to baggage claim and customs while we had to go to the international terminal for one more flight to Christchurch, New Zealand.