Australia Day 11: The Monkey Wrench

Nate had forgot his reusable water bottle at the rental car place yesterday, and they were closed when he dropped off the car, so today he would need to get it. It had rained overnight, and although it is very cloudy this morning it is quite warm and humid.

After breakfast while Nate and Landon retrieve his water bottle, Kailey and I walk to the store to buy a key chain. She had had wanted to buy it last night but the store was closed.

Upon returning to the hotel it's time for me to figure out how to pack our bags to head home. I would like to pack them in such a way that we only need to get into one of the bags and so that they will also work when we get into LA without needed to adjust things.

We have had a baggage allowance while flying internationally of each bag weighing up to 32 kg, which is just over 70 lbs. However when we fly home from LA we are only allowed 50 lbs. I have my beach bag that is quite large that I could take out of the checked bag and use it as a carry on item if we need, so I'm taking that into account as I pack.

It takes me quite a while to figure out how to fit everything in the bags, but I manage to get both bags to be right below 50 lbs, as in 49.8 lbs! No room to buy more!

After packing we relax and let the kids watch some cartoons while I try catch up on my blog notes.

This above is an Australian outlet. Thankfully I bought two Australian converters for this trip as most of our converters are for European outlets. I have one that is an international converter, however the plug for Australia is at the bottom of a rectangle box about 1.5"x3". Because of the little switch it would shut the power off the the outlet, making it useless. The ones I just bought worked perfectly though as they are designed to hang down below the plug. All modern switches in Australia are required to have a switch that shuts off power to each individual outlet.

We paid for late check-out, which means we have until 2 PM in our room. Nate and Landon go get in one last game of ping pong before we head down with our bags to check out right before 2. The hotel holds our bags for us, and we head out for lunch.

We first walk to the night market food court, which is inside, but it's not really cooled. Landon wants some gyoza from a Japanese place that we've had a couple of times so we grab that. It's so hot and muggy outside today, we would like to eat someplace that has AC. We know the food court in the mall has AC. We also aren't overly hungry, so this seems like a good option. It takes 20 minutes to walk to the mall and the AC feels nice when we arrive. 

This place has 4-5 vehicles painted like the Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo

Kailey wants a smoothie for lunch. I know we saw a smoothie place when we were here before, but we look and it's not where we thought it was. Landon thinks it’s by one of the grocery stores in the mall so we head towards the closest one, and Landon was correct. Although it’s not the smoothie place Nate and I were thinking of, it will do. Kailey picks out what she wants and I try convince Landon to get a smoothie too, since his gyoza wasn't much food. 

At first Landon tells me that they don't have any flavors that he likes. I ask him what are the flavors he likes and he says watermelon and strawberry. I see a flavor that has just that in it, but he is worried since it also says it has lemon. I tell him that won't be the main flavor so he decides to go for it and he loves it!

Nate grabs some ramen from next to the smoothie place and we walk back to the main food court seating where I get a burrito bowl. After eating our food it is already time to walk back to the hotel for our bags and catch an Uber to the airport.

Nate's ramen that he got "To Go". He said he saw them heating the broth with a torch before they gave it to him and it was very hot when he went to eat it!

Everything goes smoothly and the 4 mile journey only takes 15 minutes or so. After tagging our bags we go to the bag drop. When we get to the counter it is taking the guy forever and he's not telling us why. He goes and talks to a coworker and then they both come back, and then after 15 minutes he tells us that they had downgraded our plane to a smaller plane. The kids tickets are together and Nate and I are together. He's not supposed to seat the children without an adult, so he asks if it is okay to put one kid with each adult. That is what we would do anyway, so he changes out tickets and we are finally on our way.

Going through security, Landon's bag gets flagged for extra screening. We can see the X-ray screen the guy is looking at as he is examining the bags. There are quite a few bags flagged for extra screening. Most he looks at closer and then is satisfied and has them move on, but right before Landon's bag he pulls out a grill scraper from a bag with metal bristles and a metal scrape bar. It looks used too! Seems like an odd thing to try to pack in a carry on. That goes in the trash, with no questions asked. When it is Landon's turn I can see he is looking at a camera in Landon's bag and after a quick examination he says we are good to go.

While looking for our gate we see a LEGO store. We tell the kids they can look but we won't be buying anything. Even if they want something we have NO ROOM in our bags. After 15 minutes we go to find our gate, as we're waiting I feel my phone vibrate in my purse. I look at it and find they have cancelled our flight due to an engineering issue!

This is a LEGO set of a car from Fast and the Furious. We saw a replica of this car in town earlier.

We quickly figure out how to get back to the ticketing counter as there is no agent at the gate. We learned a few years ago how time is essential when your flight is cancelled to get on a new flight before they are all booked. We only have two days in Sydney, so we want to get there with time to still explore and we also need to make our flight back home!

Due to a curfew in Sydney prohibiting aircraft from taking off or landing between 11 PM and 6 AM, the plane they are sending will not be able to head to Sydney until the next day, so the earliest plane we can get on is leaving at 7:50 AM tomorrow.

JetStar sent an email that says they will pay for reasonable accommodations, food, and transportation. We just have to save receipts and submit for reimbursement. That does nothing for the night we are paying for in Sydney and can't use, which is also the most expensive hotel of our trip, but at least it's not costing us extra. Our trip insurance may cover those costs, but I'll have to submit a claim after getting home to see.

We find a hotel closer to the airport that was within the recommended price range for reimbursement and booked it. This was a hotel I had looked into staying at, but had decided against because it's so much further from all the things we wanted to be doing on our trip.

When we check in the lady says that since it is a last minute reservation, they need to double-check the room is ready. While we are waiting I call our trip insurance just to see if I need to do anything about a claim. Sounds like I can deal with it after returning since JetStar is paying for the hotel. They suggest I check if the delay insurance covers anything. While I'm on the phone Nate takes the kids on a walk checking out the property. There are multiple pools and on they advertised golf and pedal karts, but it turns out that is only open on the weekends. Unfortunately since we don't have time to dry swim suits before flying out, we tell the kids we can't go in the pool. They are disappointed but they understand.

When we get into our room the AC is on and it feels pretty good. Kailey said “if you don't want it to get too humid we could close the window…” sure enough the window is wide open! Not the most efficient way to cool a room. Good catch Kailey!

I discover they have guest laundry. I need to wash a few things, and instead of trying to wash them in the sink, I figure I can now just wash a full load in the washer and dryer. I grab the laundry bag and my laundry soap sheets I had brought along and head over to start washing. I realize that if I'm going to be drying a load of clothes, I can actually also dry swim suits.

I ask the kids if they want to go swimming, which is a huge YES! We only have about 15-20 minutes before I need to put the clothes in the dryer, which is fine as we still need to get dinner ordered at one of the restaurants before they close.

After our quick swim we change into clothes and I add our swimwear to our wet clothes in the dryer. We head to a pizza restaurant on site and get a pepperoni pizza, Hawaiian pizza, and even a Nutella marshmallow calzone. The food is pretty good, but the marshmallow in the calzone must have melted to nothing, and although it looks big and poofy there is nothing inside of it. It was overly sweet and very oily, nothing I would order again.

Our clothes aren't dry after one dry cycle, so I put them going again. Nate wants to order a milkshake, so he does that and the kids start playing on the playground.

Nate orders a caramel milk shake…but what he gets is shaken milk with some caramel flavor…not the creamy cold drink we usually think of. Nate is going crazy wondering if what Australians call a milkshake is totally different than what we are used to. Finally he goes back and asks the guy how it was made because it was so unlike an American milkshake. The guy says the ice cream was really melty and he hoped it still had a good flavor. They only use two scoops of ice cream, and if it was already melted to begin with, it made slightly sweeter and slightly thicker milk. Very disappointing.

Just a little bit humid!

It starts to rain pretty steadily and when my laundry timer is done we go to check on the laundry. This time it's finished. I put the clothes in my laundry bag, but It's still raining pretty hard so I shove the bag of clean dry clothes under my shirt.

Everyone helps fold the laundry so it can be done quickly, then we all take showers and get ready for bed.

This shower is also a dumb design. Another short glass wall and then open to the bathroom. The problem is the drain is slow to drain and the water floods the bathroom floor. There is a drain in the floor, but it's about 5 feet away on the other side of the toilet. After everyone is done showering I try mop up the floor so we don't have to step in a puddle if we need to use the bathroom at night. I also discover that the bathroom has a window that is always open with a grate over it.

Before bed we turn on the TV and find Australian Deal or No Deal. It's different in that the people holding the suitcases are people the contestant knows, not models. When the contestant picks a case, the person holding the case has a chance to guess what is in the case. If they are correct they win 250 AUD ($165 USD). The guy who is playing the game has a terrible game! He keeps knocking out the high numbers almost one after another. He says he wants to be some kind of voice actor in the future, like the person reading the announcements on the train about upcoming stops or something. The “banker” says he will pay him to give an example, and then likes it so much he said he will pay him to record a voicemail… So he make 200 AUD just doing the silly voice stuff. There are two people holding cases that guess the amounts in their cases correctly and the host jokes that it will be sad if they win more money than him. In the end I think he has 100 AUD in his case, so he walks away with 300 AUD total ($196 USD.)  

The beds are nothing to write home about (although hey, here I am writing about them), but way better than sleeping in an airport. When we go to sleep Kailey is too cold. The beds don't have blankets, only thin cotton sheets. So Nate turns up the temp on the AC, and slows the fan speed. It's a little complicated as the AC unit is controlled by a remote, not a thermostat. In the middle of the night Nate and I wake up because it's too warm in the room, so we have to figure out how to adjust it again around 3 AM. We get back to sleep and the rest of the night goes fine.