Second leg, fly to Melbourne, 5-7 November

After a nice relaxed lunch at Green Street with Carol and Wes, old friends of ours from Neighborhood Church, we collected our stuff, two bags each, and made our way to Los Angeles Airport to drop the rental car off and wait for our almost-midnight flight.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Actually, the long ride from Clarli’s place in Eagle Rock to the car-rental place was easy; the shuttle from there to the United terminal 7 took much longer. It’s good we were not pressed for time.

Anyway, we did get to our Gate 74 in plenty of time, and as usual, amused ourselves with iPhone and reading material till our flight left. This was the fifth of the month; after midnight, the sixth; and after crossing the International Date Line, the seventh. But it was a long flight no matter how you might look at it. Sixteen hours? it seemed like forever.

Our room in Melbourne (bigger image).

Our hotel in Melbourne was the Holiday Inn Melbourne Airport, almost within walking distance, and they had a room for us on our arrival. We had been in touch with Alyce, another old friend from Neighborhood Church who has recently moved to Melbourne to be near family, and had a fine time with her in downtown Melbourne, at a pub near the commuter-train station where she had come in. It was fun catching up with her doings, and letting her know what’s been happening with us.

Let me quote from my journal here: «Mark seemed to have slept pretty well on the flight, but I thought that I had hardly slept at all. So, I was very tired when we got to the hotel, but probably somewhat energized by our visit with Alyce. Back in the hotel, M warned me not to sleep too much, so as to encourage acclimation to the time change, and I planned to sleep only two hours.

«But I crawled into bed, slept soundly, and when M woke me, I had been under for four hours. I asked him how much he had slept, and he said “Four hours.” So at least I didn’t feel foolish or selfish.»

My journal continues: «We stayed in the hotel for dinner. I had lamb rump, cooked in a way that made it into mystery meat, or maybe beef, most certainly not lamb. It was good, though, and not at all fatty. Best was the all-arugula salad with pears.

«An hour or two on the laptop, and I was back under the covers by ten.» In the morning? You’ll have to read about that on the next day’s page.