Liz-Core Online: January 2010

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Sydney Sydney Sydney!

Well I made it to Sydney alive. The 13.5 hour flight was pretty good minus the bogan Aussie's in the row behind me who asked me not to recline my seat because she "had no room." Hello, we're sitting in economy, none of u have room. Whoever she was with told the Houstonite sitting beside me that if he put his seat back again he was an asshole. The older Alabaman woman on the end of our three seats heard this and freaked out, "Get a flight attendent, oh my god, get a flight attendent." All I could think was "Welcome to Australia!" hahaha The Aussie guy muttered something about 'yanks' a few minutes later as well.
After no problems with customs and quarantine, I took a cab to Coogee Beach and reunited with Andy. This was all before 7:30am.
We had a nap then wandering around Coogee for a bit and just had a great, relaxing day.
Today we moved from Andy's friends apartment (he's away on vacation with his parents and returns today) to a hotel in King's Cross. We have a few decisions to make in the next four days and it loooks like buying a car and heading to Adelaide is in our foreseeable futures. It's really exciting to have no looming deadlines or anything like that- the world is really our oyster right now :)

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

No Tuesday this week!

Did I mention I get to skip Tuesday this week?
I leave LA at 8pm on Monday and arrive in Sydney at 6am on Wednesday, so Tuesday gets totally skipped. Which I think is a good thing because Tuesdays suck!

(I don't know what time zone my blog is set to, but it isn't Tuesday here right now, so ignore the date and time there, it's WRONG.)

Los Angeles Layover

I last wrote from the Ottawa airport, in somewhat of a mood due the distribution of false/misleading/whatever information. I’ll have you know that that day of flying went well- we arrived in LA 30minutes early!!! A small miracle according to my history with Chicago O’Hare and American Airlines, haha.
Anyway, I know type from LAX, Terminal 3, waiting for my V Australia flight to Sydney! Weeeeeeee! I’ll recap my two nights in LA. Elaine, my gracious hostess, picked me up at the airport and we joined her boyfriend Ian and a few of his friend for a bit of NFL watching at a bar in Santa Monica. It was loud and fun and I forgot how refreshing Mexican beer can be. Later we dumped my stuff at her place and met up with fellow Longhorn ex-swimmer, Ashely Razo (who was in town for the big BSC Bowl loss, sad face), for dinner. It was a great reunion.
The next morning Nikki joined us for breakfast at a cute place in Hollywood, Grub, and then we all went for a hike at Temescal State Park. We intended to only go about 2 miles but I think it ended up being about 4 or so. It was fun and the views from the hills were wicked. You could see all of LA and surrounding area and of course the lovely thick layer of smog. After a quick shower Elaine and I hit Melrose for some shopping and checked out the Farmers Market where we found golden raspberries!!! Weird! They tasted just like the red ones!
Later we met Ian for dinner at the same place Jill had taken the team about 4 years ago when we spent the first few days of 2006 training with USC and watching the Longhorns win the National Championship. Crazy. After a movie it was time for bed.
Monday involved me having a heart attack on a plate for breakfast and then packing up and heading to the airport 5 hours early, where I now sit and wait. I am so happy that this day has finally arrived! I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited to get somewhere. Eeeeeeeeee!!Yeah, so although my time in LA was short, it was very sweet, and really the perfect layover J

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Is This a Joke?

So as per usual when I'm home at my parents house for a while I start getting into the bad habit of going to bed later and later each night and subsequently getting up later and later in the morning (I blame Greg). Meaning, last night I went to bed at 3am, was woken up by drunk phone calls from my sister at 3:30am and 3:37am (Thanks a lot by the way) and then had to wake up at 6:30am because I had to be at the airport in Ottawa 3 hours early! The Ottawa airport is a 2hour drive and my flight is at noon. Leaving the house at 8am and arriving at the airport for 10am doesn't sound so bad, right? Right. BUT then some crazy man decides to build an underpants bomb or something and flying into the USofA becomes this huge, complicated deal. No carry-ons! Security proceedures are nuts! and take forever! Be there early! or you'll miss your flight! Delays! etc, etc. So I get on the GD internet and see what it really all means... the Canadian Transit Authority, or something to that name, tells me to go to my air carriers website for details on what I can take on the plane and how early to be there. FUCK. Why such strong language? Because I'm flying the best airline in the world: American Airlines. Yeah, so AA.com tells me I can take my laptop, cameras, other personal items on the plane, even food. yay. They also tell me my other regular, big carry-on will be checked free of charge. double yay. But then when I look for Ottawa to see how early I have to be there... I see this: "All Canadian Cities: 3 hours." All I can think is that they have got to kidding.
If you fly a lot in Canada you know there is a ridiculous difference in airport size, volume, traffic, etc between say Ottawa, Calgary, Winnipeg, and the big 3: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Things get stupid at the big 3. I've flown out of Ottawa before and it is ALWAYS EMPTY. I waltz through check-in, security, and US customs in about 10minutes, probably less. No joke. So when I learn that I should be at the Ottawa airport 3 whole hours early?!?!?! Profanity.
Needless to say, I woke up at 6:30am this morning, after 3.5hours sleep, left the house by 7:07am, drove 2 hours to our Nation's capital, arrived at the airport just after 9am. Found the American desk... waited 35minutes for the desk to even open! Then another 10 in line for my turn to check-in. While waiting the woman in front of me was talking to the people in front of her about carry-ons and then turned to me and said "You know that, right? No carry-ons and your purse needs to be blahblahblah in size." "Yeah, I went to the website. I know." She could see my large purse type bag (with my laptop in it) that was obvisouly bigger than the size she said (the website said no such thing about exact dimensions) and I don't know if she was trying to make me panic and start going through things and make a scene of sorts so she had something to watch while she waited or what. But she raised her poorly drawn-on eyebrows at me and I just stared blankly at her and rasied mine right back. Actually, that's probably a lie. I probably gave her "the look" rather than a blank stare, hahaha. Anyway, how satisfied was I when I checked-in for they didn't weigh my bags nor charge me for checking them! and my "carry-on" was no problem. Some Canadians, Jesus.
Back to my point about being there 3 hours early in fear of missing my flight: From the time I stepped up to the desk to check-in to the time I sat down here (I'm currently sitting in the lounge, waiting for my flight), including security check one, dumping my checked bags, security check two that included a full body pat down, US customs with a chatty agent, AND a Tim Horton's purchase... it took 15minutes.
Good thing the wifi is free because I now have TWO FUCKING HOURS to kill.

Thanks a lot Terrorist.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Mont Tremblant

Saruman's Tower at the Summit

On Monday afternoon we drove 4+ hours to Mont Tremblant in Quebec to go skiiing. I hadn't been skiiing since I was 14 years old and was both nervous and excited to hit the slopes after a 13 year absence.

Heading back to dinner in the village

When we got to our hotel that evening we had a few drinks, had dinner, had more drinks, and had a general good time.

A pitcher of Sleeman's Rousse later...

The next morning we got up at 7am, had coffee, got our gear and lift tickets and headed out.

Greg waiting for me to stop taking pictures and get my shit together.

Needless to say I was still a little drunk in the morning and told my Dad and brother that I wanted to start slow aka on the green circles (easiest) and blue squares (more difficult). Sure sure they said, we'll do a few blue squares to get started. So on the first run we did a blue square and it was okay. I my Dad was yaking directions/orders/tips/what have you at me as he skiied down hill in front of me. "Dad, when you start talking and then start going down the hill with your back to me I can't hear you." Yeah, okay, well he kept doing it. On the second run I was tricked and taken down a black diamond (most difficult). It was okay, I survived. But then, they took me down another black diamond, one with a very small entrance between some ropes and an accompanying sign that read "Marginal Conditions." So at just after 9am in the morning, I was all shakey (from the previous night's booze) trying to ski down fucking icey mogels on my 3rd run! I fell a few times and was convinced my Dad was trying to kill me. Was this a conspiracy between my Mom and Dad to keep me in the country? Break a couple of her bones and she won't be able to fly anywhere! Muhahhahahahahahaha! But it wasn't and I got braver and it got way better, especially after I had some breakfast and my blood alcohol level decreased. And in the end it was awesome and going fast was no longer scary, but FUN and AWESOME.

Peak of The Edge in the distance

Yeah, so we skiied until the lifts stopped at 3:30pm (it starts getting dark at like 4pm up here in the Great White North), had some maple taffy, and then drove home. YAY.