jawnbc | on arrive!

A mostly uneventful journey Down Under. Our flight left 2 hours late because of de-icing the wings. Trust me, you always want your airliner de-iced if anyone thinks it's a good idea. Winds made the trip to HNL about 45 minutes longer, so we arrived in SYD just under 2 hours late. No upgrades, though we both slept fine thanks to little blue footballs.

querrelle got snarky with a snarky customs agent and was strip searched. I pretended not to know him and waited in the kiss-n-cry, where the Lebanese-Australian families amused me by double kissing every new person in their entourage of 2 gazillion people. Now wouldn't it be funny if whomever they shower with flowers and balloons (they had lots of both, trust me) quickly scanned the crowd and said "where's Mrs. Habbibi?" and pouted? Hilarity, no doubt, would ensue.

We got to the hotel entirely too early to check in, but we did shower in the pool area.

mynumber1 booked it for us as a prezzie, and we were upgraded to a 1BR from a studio. Excellent base for 9 days, thanks Marko! We then joined Marko and the sexy Pol (who is submitting his dissertation this week, how exciting) for a great brunch at Morgans in Darlinghurst. Great meal, great service,and a great (and ginormous) flat white. We then went to settle into our room before each doing our bit for international relations. Tonight it's dinner at Battuta (our "local" for after work meals on Fridays) then Sunday at the Shift with Marko.

Oh, and I totally predicted it would be Stephane Dion for the Liberal leadership--months ago. I am so frickin' smart...