OK, so I officially sucked at documenting the travels. I’m again on a plane in business class, but this is also a month after I started this post. As an aside, I’ve really got to stop upgrading to business class – I’m getting used to flying this way and it sucks when I don’t! Anyway, let’s see how much I can recall of my trip (with the help of hastily scribbled notes and credit card statements).
As I mentioned at the start of the last post, it was an early start on Monday but I didn’t have any issues. I’m glad I paid the small fee for priority on AA, especially since these flights were my basic economy fares. Unfortunately, Hartford was the one airport that didn’t have an AA (or any one world) lounge so I had to spend the time waiting for my flight in the standard lounge area – isn’t life tough!
I’m struggling to remember, which is why writing this so late is bad, but I think the flights were uneventful. Read whatever I wrote about my last AA flight – I’m sure it was pretty much the same. However, I would like to reiterate that flight across the US seem to have a lot more turbulence than in Australia. (Though given the flight I’m currently on, I’m starting to reconsider that statement). We changed planes in Miami and when I boarded (as one of the first thanks to priority) I was slightly concerned. Though nobody else seemed to worries about the smoke that seemed to be coming from the ceiling… Turns out it wasn’t smoke – have a look at this article (https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weather/forecasts/what-is-this-weird-thick-fog-filling-airplane-cabin-before-take-off) for a description of the phenomenon, but it was certainly something unusual that I hadn’t seen before. Despite all that we made it safely to Orlando. (and yes I forgot to mention it, but there was a brief stop in the Admiral’s club at Miami airport. This one was middle of the road as they go. Had decent stuff, but not Chicago level!)
At Orlando, after a significantly long wait, I picked up my car at Orlando. This time, it was. Mitsubishi Rouge – it still amazes me that this is a so called ‘compact’ car, but I did love the car more on that later. But here’s a picture of it to finish off this post.
This is my car in the Disney car park. The building behind it is where I was staying. (Funnily enough, the car did not get much use while I was at Disney!)
OK, so I’m now a long way behind. I’m currently on my last leg of the return home, my flight from Sydney to Perth. But I’m in business class and I have internet, so lets see if I can’t pump out a few more posts before I decide to do work or play Civ!
So IC finishes and my holiday begins, but I have to get there first! I headed off back down to Hartford. There were a few times where I thought I would have a passenger, but it ended up just being me. I realised that my trip has quite a lot of driving. I do enjoy driving but it takes more concentration in the US as everybody is on the wrong side of the road! It’s not a long drive to Hartford, just under an hour but the problem was that I couldn’t check into my hotel until 3 meaning I had a bit of time to kill.
Anyone what to guess what I did? I went to Target (because they always have a Starbucks in the US) and I got a coffee! I also got pumpkin loaf, because well it’s good and we don’t have it here. That effectively gave me enough time to go find my hotel and check in.
It was nice. They had a pool that I was keen to use, but there were a lot of other people in it and I didn’t really want to share. This is me being introverted, needing some alone time after all the people at IC. I had a drink and and some chips and watched some Masterchef – me relaxing and having my alone time! I had some food, but not enough for a full meal so I decided to walk down to McDonalds (how adventurous of me), came back, ate that, watched more Masterchef!
A brief aside, because I forgot to mention this before – the food at UMass was fantastic. Admittedly it’s probably not a fair comparison, but relative to Uni food in Perth I can see why UMass has won best campus food 2+ years in a row. All the food we had was really good.
Then it was time to shower, shave etc. It was time for my holidays and as I had a few minutes I thought I should was my hair and shave etc. (Please note I did shower during IC, it was just usually done quickly as it was a busy time – this was more relaxed). I then packed which was a bit problematic. This is the same issue I ran into last year. When I have a car it’s fine. If I’m driving around I don’t have to fit everything into my suitcase, I can take backs of things, keep my dirty clothes seperate etc. The problem is going to a new place, where I have to fly, I have to refit everything into my suitcase. I also tend not to have as much room for food etc that I’ve bought. I had quite a lot that I had to go through – some of the things I throw out included a bath mat (another this UMass doesn’t provide) paper tower, a wine glass, chips and other food I hadn’t eaten yet – you see the problem! Anyway I got that all together and sorted.
Then I had a relatively early night – did I mentioned my bad planning with flight bookings. I had a 6am flight so I had to get up at about 3.45. Thankfully, the airport was literally less than 5 minutes from my hotel so that was all relatively easy and returning the rental car was no problem (even though no Hertz people were in attendance). Anyway, that the next post – see you there!
Oh, I’m not sure if I ever showed you the car I had in Massachusetts – here’s a picture of the Mum van I was driving!
I can’t complain – it was actually very nice to drive. Also, as you might notice – front number plates, often not a thing in the US.
This should be pretty short (though whenever I promise that it never seems to happen!) I woke up earlier that I would have liked, it wasn’t especially early, I just hadn’t had a lot of sleep over the past few nights. I drove down to Mullins Center again for the closing ceremony and again sat with the Australian Crew and Suz,.
It was a pretty standard award ceremony, not quite as long as I thought it would be. Australia did pretty well, but we were definitely beaten by New Zealand. You can see the Australian success and results at FPS Australia’s Facebook post.
After the it was goodbye to Suz, Dylan and some other Australians who I saw at the awards ceremony and were leaving. Then it was back to North. Unlike last year I hadn’t had a chance to pack yet, so I did that. This was one of the easier trips as I was driving back to Hartford, and had a night there I could take bags with things in them as well as my suitcase.
I packed my car, had some goodbye chats in the lobby. I found out that Julie, the AD from NZ is going to be at Disney, staying in the same resort as me, at the same time, so we’ll see if I run into her! Then, with sadness, but having had a good time I left UMass Amherst. IC 2023 (and my 3rd IC) done. I’m looking forward to the 50th IC next year and hope I can make it to Indiana.
