Rewind - Full story for the Very Long Day - by Charleen

Thursday was my last day at work. Friday was for packing and getting ready for the wedding. Our friends Cam and Kath were getting married on Saturday before we leave. Clint and I had been asked to be their witnesses and had happily accepted.
Saturday arrived in a rush. For me, it was get to their home early enough to have my make up done. Just goes to show how much of special event this was - me and make up?!
The guests started arriving not knowing the full story behind the get-together. The invitation was for a BBQ, the sub plot was Clint's and my farewell, the sub sub plot was my birthday as I was turning 50 and finally the sub sub sub plot was the marriage of Cam and Kath. The event went off beautifully. There was plenty of laughter, gasps of surprise and fabulous weather. Couldn't ask for more.

The Fab Four

Sunday was up at 5am to be at the airport nice and early for our flight at 10:20. We'd bought premium economy tickets and if possible would like to have a pair of seats by the window. After a bit of standing in the wrong queue we were first in line and were able to get our preferred seats.

Our plane in the rain behind us

So that was the start of my birthday and our Very Long Day.
The V Australia flight departed on time and we made relatively good time across the Pacific. We had a glass of sparkling wine to celebrate and ate the food provided. I usually can manage a few hours sleep on this flight, but, not this time. Both Clint and I were only taking cat naps and watched a lot of movies. Arrival at Los Angeles was pretty close to schedule 6:30am Pacific Time.

LAX for us meant collecting our bags which some helpful soul had taken off the carousel and put to one side unbeknown to us, standing in extraordinarily long slow moving queues to clear Customs and Immigration, then finding our way to the next terminal to stand in more slow moving queues to clear security and then wait for our next flight. We had chosen a flight that would allow about four hours in between, just in case there were delays. There were delays for the departure to New York. New York had been experiencing bad weather which meant our flight was initially delayed by an hour. Turns out the delay was an hour and a half.

The flight to New York is usually about 4 hours 40 minutes - a little bit less than Brisbane to Perth. Our track took us over the Rockies and Lake Erie. Clint keep himself amused with WiFi from the plane. We also emailed our accommodation that we would be in later than expected. Clouds were starting to build up and sure enough our pilot announced that due to a storm over JFK we will have to spend some extra time in the air. About six laps later we could feel the plane start to descend. The pilot announced that we're going in. We had a slightly scary, exciting ride through heavy rain, thick clouds and the occasional flash of lightning. We were prepared for a rough landing, but were pleasantly surprised. Taxi to the gate and time to leave. We found our way to the baggage carousel which had thrown up a few bags from our flight then no more. Someone had stuffed up and put an international flight's baggage onto our carousel without having cleared Customs. More delays as the international bags had to be cleared from the carousel before anymore from our flight could be released. There goes another half an hour. Finally a couple of bags drop down the chute. The other passengers were onto them like seagulls on a chip! At last a siren sounded and the remaining bags ours included were released. With soggy bags in tow we headed for the taxi rank only to see great crowds of people lined up at the rank. There were about five taxis there. This was going to a slow process. We decided on a shuttle bus. We would have to wait for a bout 10 minutes before one would be available. In the meantime another couple of passengers were found to help fill the mini van. Our luggage and we were loaded into the van. Our driver was about to drive off when he realized that he needed to do something in the airport - only 5 minutes folks.

Well that allowed for another passenger to get on board. Our little group was now 5 in 3 different hotels. It took ages for the driver to come back and eventually get going. By this time we were on the count down to see if we would make it to our hotel before my birthday ran out.

The first drop off was the last passenger on board. Turns out he didn't carry any cash with him. More delay as he found someone in his group to pay the fare. In the meantime the other two were hungry and spied the halal falafel van on the corner. So they jumped out on a quest for food. It was a race to see who would get back first, the cashless one or the hungry ones. The hungry ones were back first, thankfully. The cashless one eventually found our driver and paid him. Yay we were on the move again. We had resigned ourselves to taking the other passengers to their accommodation. But no! We pulled up outside the Novotel Times Square - ours!!! Clint quickly paid the driver th e fee and a generous tip only to save mucking around with money and more delay.

Inside the hotel, we were warmly greeted, told our room had been upgraded to a Times Square room and checked in. That was the quickest and most efficient experience of the day. Up to our room and checked out the view - Wow! Time for some piccies, and order a pizza from room service. Twelve minutes to spare before it was midnight and the end of my birthday. It was about 12:30am on Monday morning when we finally put the lights out.