Herein lays the beauty of using hard-earned frequent flyer miles for first class tickets. We were able to shower and snack on cheeses, assorted cracker thingies and gummy bears in the British Airways lounge. British Airways opens their SFO lounge to Qantas passengers – how perfectly magnanimous of the Brits to share with their compatriots. Australia remains, after all, a Commonwealth under the Queen. I for one had my own little Golden Jubilee, consisting of finger foods and baseball on TV in recognition of the monarchy.
We took-off from SFO on Qantas flight 74 at 10:40PM in a mall-sized double decker Boeing 747-400.
Legroom with a view
Starting in the BA lounge and carrying onto the plane we struck up a conversation with a kind Aussie, Carol Sproats. Carol seemed to know everyone in the country and spoke of places like they were her babies. I’ve still got to Google her and see if she is the Deputy Prime Minister or something of the like. After a full hour of scribbling in a notebook at the beginning of the flight she handed me an 8 page list of tips for each of our destinations in Australia. Unbelievably nice. You’ll see in future episodes how we took advantage of her insights. Maybe she is the head of National Park Service? Minister of Tourism? In any case we happened across a human Frommers.
With a full-length bed, Qantas pajamas and belly full of dinner I watched a documentary on the Space Race and then dropped like a brick for 7 hours. When we woke up they were serving breakfast and we were less than 2 hours from Sydney. The flight took about 13 hours, yet felt much shorter. Granted, I probably wouldn’t be saying that if we had been sitting in coach where a flight attendant felt compelled to violently jam a scoop into ice right next to my ear every 10 minutes. But trust me, sleeping flat is the bee knees!
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