The Loooooong Flight Home

Well, after a 1 day delay, we did make it back to San Francisco today.  But the flight left lots to be desired. We were on a totally packed 747 - not a spare seat to be had - and when they made seat assignments for this replacement flight they did not keep couples together so initially Mary and I were in different rows.  After some elevator capacity issues at the hotel which caused delays at getting checked out and out to the bus, very long lines at Qantas check-in (normal flights plus our make-up 747 plus another make-up 747 headed to London), the seat assignment issue about put us over the edge.  They sent a note to the gate staff to move us around which eventually happened, but not without considerable stress in the interim. 

We were in seats B and C (middle and aisle) so no wall to lean against to sleep and no open seat like we had on our outbound flight.  The seats seemed closer together on this plane as well - I don't recall having an issue with my knees hitting the seat in front of me when flying to Australia.  Then once they served dinner and hot chocolate and people were supposed to quiet down, the plane remained very noisy.  People talking out loud, babies and small children crying every few minutes, and lots of general commotion removed any possibility of sleeping until about 8 hours into the 14 hour flight. So it was not nearly as pleasant as our outbound flight.  I think things might have been better had we not had the 1 day delay since we suspect Qantas added more passengers to our flight since they delayed the normal flight 73 by a hour to make room at the gate for our flight.  Mary's reaction:  "next time Business class".

I think I slept a bit on the flight but it was not high quality sleep; I don't think Mary slept at all.  So we're a bit groggy today.  I took a 1 hour nap once we got checked in here in San Francisco and we're planning to stay up for a few hours then to get to sleep by 8:00 this evening to help with the time zone transition. 

Tomorrow is "back to Detroit" day (NWA flight 342) with Wednesday being a get caught up at home day before heading back to work on July 3rd.  So our long Australia vacation is drawing to a close.  I watched the Australia coast disappear from view this morning with many regrets about leaving, yet I knew it was time to go.