Hi all, just a quick note since I’m in Sydney and have 4 hours to kill. Duck and I sat at Willy field until 1 pm yesterday while the crew waited for the ground fog to burn off. Would have been awful but Some kind souls brought us pizza and soup making up for it. Good thing too, since we weren’t off the plane until 9:20 or so. I had the quickest transit to my hotel ever, I was the first American off the plane, first through customs and first to the CDC. Was in my hotel room (the Sudima at the airport) about 9:45 pm. My itinerary is pretty rough (my CHC to Sydney flight was at 7 am) so I skipped dinner, reorganized my bags for commercial air, and went to bed. 6 hrs sleep is not enough but that’s what the schedule allows.

My next flight is the very long 15:45 flight to Dallas. I didn’t try to upgrade since the forward cabin is always full anyway and I did get a rear aisle seat. Was told the seat next to me was empty and probably will stay that way. Not gonna believe that until I see it. I have another long layover in Dallas and then a late evening flight to Cleveland that arrives 11:50 pm Friday. Hoping I spot an earlier flight to cle that night of course. But barring troubles of a rare scale I should be in the US about 20 hours from now. And home roughly 60 hours after leaving McMurdo. Missing the field team but missing home even more.

Posted by rph from a crowded Sydney terminal