Survived the 16 hour flight!

How was your Monday? I didn't really have one. I left LA at 11:30pm. Immediately we were forced to switch to Melbourne time which was 5:30pm on Monday. They served us a late dinner, and told us to go to sleep. Which of course I did. I woke a few times, but I didn't really wake up till 5am when they served breakfast. So according to Qantas, I flipped from bedtime on Sunday in LA to dinner time on Monday in Melbourne in a matter of minutes. I'm surprised how easy the switch was! I was so tired, I didn't really care.

Chicago to LA was an adventure. We were late getting to the airport, but that didn't much matter when I realize our flight was delayed. I tried to leave my poster at security. A certain someone asked that I refer to research posters as a "poster of research awesomeness" to distinguish it from a jr. high science fair poster board. So I ran back to security to claim my posternof research awesomeness, but it already been deemed suspicions and they made me stand there while they leisurely checked it for explosives. For real. Then I nearly left the dang thing on the airplane in LA. Oops!

I think I'm most excited that I got to fly in an A380. The A380 is currently the largest passenger plane out there. I have an inside scoop on the A380, because a certain someone was a part of the engine test flights. Way back in 2006, I visited Toulouse, France for the first time. He left me on the side of the road outside the Airbus headquarters so that I could watch for the A380 take off. Might sound lame, but seeing it take off is quite the sight. It does this hover thing that you don't see in normal passenger planes. As you can imagine loading about 800 people on a plane is a pain, and the terminals for them are often really far away from civilization. I think we walked at least 1.5 miles to get to our terminal.

Qantas did a few things right on this flight.
1. Everyone got a meal card. If you're asleep when they come by for a meal, they keep your meal in the oven and you can have it later.

2. There are snacks available at your leisure and the snacks are good! Apples, cookies, seasoned almonds, etc. Plus you can get your own drink whenever you want it. Every airline should do this.

3. There are foot rests. Thank you!

Ok, well...time for me to check into my room, freshen up a bit and go exploring! It's 1pm on Tuesday in Melbourne and 11pm on Monday in Indiana. Craziness!