The next day, November 3rd, Sebastien went to a real salon and had an expert shave it off.

After we were clean, waxed, and packed we headed to the Phoenix airport for the first leg of our flight.  My big backpack was stuffed and my carry on backpack was full as well.  A little heavy but doable.  Our flight to LAX was about an hour with no complications.  Once in LAX we had walked about a half a mile to the international gate.  Qantas had a very small area for check in and the lady at the counter was not very friendly.  I had to eliminate a book from my carry on because I was over the carry on limit.  The most you could carry on is 7 kilos.

Once we had our bags checked-in Alison picked us up for dinner.   I am bummed that I will be missing watching her transformation over the next 9 months.  After some food we returned to the airport and tearfully said “good bye”.  Now it was just Sebastien and I on our puffin adventure.

We quickly made it through the security checks and headed to Chili’s for some beers.  There we meet two New Zealand guys who come to the states about 4 times a year to buy old cars .  They were very interesting and I only understood half of what they were saying.  However, they were able to inform us that instead of our flight being 16 hours (which is what we had initially believed) it was only a 12/13 hour flight.  YIPPEEEE!!!  After a few laughs with them we boarded our sold out plane towards Brisbane.

I sat next to this gal who had flown from Brisbane to New York City to run in the marathon.  I couldn’t believe she had flown all that way just for the marathon and then back within 5 days.  She provided us with some hints and tips for getting around Aussie.  The flight on a whole wasn’t to bad.  We both got about 4-6 hours of sleep and the food was decent.  It was a good idea to leave late at night.  We landed around 8 AM on the 5th of November.  We lost a full day somewhere over the Pacific.

Once we landed we gathered our belongings and conveniently took and train and bus to Burleigh Heads.  Which is a beach town south of Surfers Paradise.  We are staying in a Quality Inn like hotel called Outrigger Hotel.  It is decent.  It is a block from the beach which after we dropped off our stuff we checked out.  The sand here reminds me of the sand on Coronado.  Very beautiful stretch of beach.  There were a ton of clear jelly fish on the beach.  We asked John, the lifeguard, about the dangers of them.  He chatted with us for about 10 minutes about this and that.  From surfboards to his motivation in life.  Again, we understood about half of what he was talking about.

We also went grocery shopping which was a shock!  Food here is very expensive.  We purchased a loaf of bread, hummus, some fruit, chicken, and a few other things which cost bout $50.00.  A 4 pack of Guinness was $15.00.  After making ourselves some dinner I was exhausted and we feel asleep pretty early.  Our bed is very hard but it didn’t seem to disrupt my sleep.

Since we fell asleep so early we were up around 6:30 this morning.  After doing our morning routines we walked to the beach and eat our breakfast.  We noticed a dark sky far off the coast and as we watched it the darkness grew closer and closer.  After about 30 minutes it was upon us as was the rain.  So we returned to our hotel and was able to skype with my mom and Alison.

Here are some pictures the view we have of Surfers Paradise and the area where we are staying.

We finally scheduled our departure for the first leg of our year-long trip and we’ll be leaving from Los Angeles to Brisbane, Australia on November 3rd. We found some pretty inexpensive flights on Qantas for about $1,200 for both of us. We were looking into buying one-way tickets but turns out one-way tickets were more expensive than round-trip tickets.

It’s the first time we’ll fly Qantas and I’m really excited because it’s said to be a good airline. Plus, it’s a direct flight from LA to Brisbane so we won’t have to worry about running around to catch connecting flights. The flight is about 16 hours I think. It’s going to be awful so I’ll make sure to make a stop at the drug store before leaving in order to make this flight more enjoyable, if you know what I mean

We wanted to go to New Zealand first but we heard from several sources that NZ can be cold at this time of the year. We don’t want cold. We want sun, beach, and surf. Maybe we’ll change our mind once we get to Australia.

Next step is figuring out where we’re going to stay. I want to be on the Gold Coast, right by Surfers Paradise. We’re looking into several options like renting an apartment or house sitting for other people. We’ll see how it goes…