Our first course of action? Sat in a coffee shop and had cappuccinos while watching the Australians mill around.

That was 30 hours door to door

But who is still use component cables, S-video connectors and for crying out loud, iPod audio/video connectors in their plane seats these days? These are AA equipments that ply Asia and Australia routes. I wonder if some international passengers still use them.

That was a throwback.

Never seen an airline map like that. Everything is pitch dark and no land to be seen. Consulted Google maps and realized we are hovering near Kiribati. Which means we are literally near a point that divides western hemisphere from eastern hemisphere (the 0 deg and 180 deg latitude) and the northern hemisphere from southern hemisphere (equator).

Moreover, you can see how the international date line strays from the 180 deg latitude here to save nearby islands from being on different days. But, that also means, if you travel at the right angle, you can cross the Date Line thrice or even five times. That would be one whiplash of “Today is the 5th… no it is the 6th… no, no, we are back to 5th… wait, now we are 6th of August”.

It is like my luggage confusion all over again…

We were starting to descend into Los Angeles when Delta sent me the following email. My favorite domestic airlines was sorry that our two suitcases did not arrive at our destination as intended.

Well, that obviously set us in to thinking what to do next. Good news is that we had six hours to spend before our trans Pacific flight. Enough time to go buy new clothes for this trip.

In any case, I could not do much at that point. Tried talking to an agent in chat box. Not much help.

Logical thinking was that there were two more flights from Atlanta to Los Angeles. So, hopefully they can send them in one of them. Question was if we would have enough time to take them and go to American Airlines for the check in to Australia.

Tried the link to check the status of the bags. It said they have arrived in carousel 23 ?!?

This meant, they have somehow pulled my luggage out in Atlanta for some reason and sent them out. But Atlanta does not have a carousel 23. Well, then the worst case must have happened. They mixed up destinations 🙁 Told Sharmila “The bags have gone somewhere else”.

Hmmm… this is not a good start, I mused to myself.

Curious about where they sent my bags, I checked the flight number they loaded it on to. Checked the flight status and it has gone all the way to…. wait… Los Angeles??? What the heck?

After a few more minutes of research, I figured out what had happened. There was an earlier flight that was leaving for Los Angeles and Delta decided to put our suitcases in that flight.

So, our suitcases would have been going around carousel belt 23 for two hours in Los Angeles like that ring of Saturn. In reality, they had taken them out since they were in an earlier flight and put them in a different area for us to collect.

Technically, Delta was right! My two suitcases did not arrive at our destination “as intended” !!

Phew!! That was a near disaster!!

All’s well that ends well!!

Both Nikita and Natasha have been to 5 out of the 7 continents (including Antarctica). Sharmila and I have been stuck on 4 for a long time. This trip to Australia should fix that. Now it will be a race to which Roy family member goes to the 6th continent first.

Our main target in Australia is to hit a place most folks don’t usually go – Uluru. This is in the Outback – in the middle of the Great Australian desert. Which reminds me – after the Gobi and the Saudi desert, this would be 3 out of the top 4 largest deserts in the world for me (not counting the ice capped Antarctica and Artic – which are undoubtedly the two largest deserts in the world).

When I was trying to plot by one and only marathon race, Uluru was one of the top three choices for me. (Eventually went with the Original Marathon in Greece). Had researched a lot about Uluru then and always wanted to see the giant land formation.

Outside of Uluru, I have very little knowledge of Australia. Strangely the two things Bhowmic miss had taught us in geography class in middle/high school that I still remember are the mining cities of Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie and the dingo dogs!! Undoubtedly because of the cool names.

Hoping to catch some interesting fauna there. A kangaroo or a wallaby perhaps. Definitely a wombat, if I can. I have half a mind to ask them why do they poop in cube shaped poops!!