YVR to SYD - 15 Hours of Fun!

From Vancouver, we're now flying directly to Sydney, Australia.  We boarded the plane at 23:55 hours (which is 11:55 p.m. Vancouver time, and 1:55 a.m. our time).  It is entirely understandable that there is a lot of yawning involved during the boarding process.

Jacqueline was super-excited to have scored a window seat when she checked in online.  I like window seats because you can look outside; however, apparently that is the naive opinion of a short person.  She likes window seats because the structure of the windowframe gives her extra room whereupon to rest her long swan-like head and neck.  (Tall person problems.  Whatever.)

We board the plane.  Our tickets specify seats 44J and 44K.  That seems far away.  How many rows are there on this plane, anyway?  It’s a big plane – a Boeing 777 (boo to Boeing, but yay to the 777).  We walk and we walk and we walk, through first class, and second class, and third class and steerage, and oh - there it is, row 44, right at the very end, the literal tail of the plane.  While watching some reality TV, I have recently learned that turbulence is worse at the back of the plane and relate this tidbit of information to Jacqueline.  She doesn’t care, because she is more aghast to see a gap of about a foot or more in between her seat and the promised window.  The window is within easy reaching distance, but her long swan-like neck is not quite giraffe enough to bridge the gap (like I said, tall person problems).  I don't care about her neck problems.  At least we have more room for luggage on this plane.

Holy crap, the engines on this beast are loud when they first start up.  A very deep, very resonating noise that will not at all be irksome.  Very glad to have my expensive (but totally worth it) noise-cancelling headphones.  Those very big engines also have some kick, as we noticed during takeoff.

Now we can look forward to 15 hours of fun ahead of us as we fly.  Yay.  I will explain the 15 hours of fun to you in point form:

• There are chargers on each seat back (yay!), and an interactive screen where you can choose to watch movies/TV, listen to music or podcasts, play video games, or watch the flight map.  It's actually pretty cool.
• I watched Blade Runner 2049.  It is a very meditative film, definitely a bit light on plot, but heavy on the experience and feel of the world.  Overall, I liked it.
• Also watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri, and was surprised at how much I liked the film.  These are not likeable people, mind you, but it was quite a good film.
• When you're sitting at the back of the plane, you are next to the kitchen.  If you think this means you get to eat first, you are very sadly mistaken.  They take the food all the long way out to first class, and work their way backwards.  You get the leftover crumbs of leftovers.



Pretzel-girl is bent out of shape
because I kicked her to the floor

• Time to catch some shut-eye.  When you're flying egg-carton class (aka economy), sleeping one a plane is uncomfortable at best.  Jacqueline decides she wants to try stretching out on the floor beneath our two seats.  I do not think she can manage it.  However, pretzel girl surprises me.  She's lodged in there so good that I don't even think she needs a seatbelt.  I don't think the staff would like her lying there, but it's dark, and we've covered her with blankets, so they don't see her.
• Since Jacqueline has opted for the floor, I can stretch out between the two seats.  Being shorter, it is easier for me to fit.  Nevertheless, I still have a metal arm rest jammed in my back, and my feet are extending out under the other arm rest, which limits mobility, and the plane is bouncing and jouncing and doing its turbulent thing, which also inhibits rest.
• Our flight path takes us over the Hawaiian islands.  FYI, Honolulu has very bumpy air.  I don't know if it's their volcanos or what, but that was about an hour or two of "keep your seatbelts on and just get used to being all shook up."
• They've got us on some weird timetable, so it is only about two or three hours later that the staff are distributing a faux-breakfast snack (being not the normal breakfast time, but an accelerated schedule to get us to switch to Aussie timeframes).  At first breakfast, we are about 1000 kms from the Magellan Rise.  What's that, you ask?  It's water.  It's all water.
• Near Buariki and Lolua, the flight screen shows the International Date Line.  This is the date line that eats Monday.  We get on the plane on Sunday, and Monday vanishes as we fly over the date line.  Poof!  Gone.  We've lost a day, but gained no time - still have 4748 kms to go.
• The airline staff have closed all the windows to confuse our internal clocks, since we already lost a day and a bunch of weird hour changes.  
• I am getting very very tired of sitting.  I kicked my boots off, because my feet got hot.  Now my feet are cold, but it is hard to get my boots back on - I think my feet are swelling.  And yes, I am wearing compression stockings.
• The washroom at the very back of the plane is just past the emergency exit.  Despite the Stygian darkness of our plane's interior, I suddenly discover daylight!  It's beautiful out there!  For a while, I just stand there with my head stuck in the emergency exit porthole, peering out at daylight and clouds over the Pacific.
  

  The plane is kept dark with windows closed.

  Clouds over the Pacific Ocean in the morning. You can see the tip of our plane wing on the left.

• On the flight display app, the top speed I saw posted was 1001 kph, and the lowest temperature was -50C. 
• 12500 kms is a long way.
• Near the end of the trip, my interactive panel stopped interacting with me.  I broke the plane!  I wonder if they had to reboot it to fix?

Land ho!  Buildings and boats.

When we finally, finally, FINALLY are reaching Sydney, it still seems to take a long time to actually get to the airport.  Jacqueline is peering out the window and finding it amusing to see all of the cars driving along in the wrong direction (we are so gonna get flattened by a car).

The plane is still descending when we see the welcoming blue and yellow boxiness of the local IKEA store.  Everyone gets an IKEA but us!  (Yes, I know Sydney is way bigger - I'm just saying.)

As we're coming in for a landing at the Sydney airport, the flight crew informs us that we're arriving to a slightly cool (by Aussie standards), slightly cloudy day.  Perfect for us! 😌