This week I am in Melbourne Australia with my kid and their Orchestra.  We left on July 2^nd early in the morning and arrived July 5^th in the evening.  It was a llllooonnnnggg trip.  Canceled flights, long layovers, so much waiting around…

The short story (and likely the way we will remember this) doesn’t sound so bad.  Our connecting flight got canceled, so we stopped over in LA. We got a hotel for the night.  Slept in.  Had breakfast.  Went to the beach and Santa Monica Pier and then got back to the airport to Australia.   

The long story (and I do mean long story) is much different.  We are in a huge group and every time we went from station to station it takes hours – Literally Hours!  While writing the first draft – a very whinny version – I was sitting on the floor while they are checking our bags for the third time and I was whining to the world.  “Its is so long!“.  I deleted most of that.  Everyone in the leadership of our orchestra and travel agency is working super hard too so you can’t complain too much.  I really appreciate how much they did to keep us going. 

Getting out of LAX that first night took 5 steps each taking an hour or more.  It was crazy.  We were so tired when we all got to the hotel.  The same goes for the 2^nd or 3^rd day.  I really lost track of time there.  We literally lost July 4^th due to the international date line.  HAHA!

When we were checking our bags for the last flight, the airport employee was distracted by another worker.  It seems that she was the boss.  So, while she was checking our bags, she must have made a mistake because bean’s bag got routed to a later flight.  The travel company figured it out right away and got us the bag after a little delay.

Basically, there was a delay at every step imaginable.  But we got there!  By the end I could tell that the people I was traveling with started to get a little tired and frustrated.  But I was amazed at how positive everyone was.  The students showed up on time to everything and were in good/reasonable moods.  They were quite amazing!  Of course, everyone was exhausted. 

I was talking to some of the VIPs of the orchestra that this had not been my experience traveling with students.  There was this one time we stopped for Halal food in Binghamton …    

I was going to write the title of this blog post to be, “How I dissed America’s 250^th birthday” – because we literally skipped the Fourth of July.  That seemed funny for a moment, but I guess it doesn’t seem so funny now. 

One today’s agenda: Koala Bears and Penguin Marches!  I believe their first show is tomorrow.  Tune in for updates!