Our Sydney Sunday started early to be ready for a 10:30 flight back to the states. We hailed an uber when we got downstairs, and got a New Zealander with quite the sense of humor. It was good we did, because you could cut the tension with a knife when we realized the quick 3 minute trip to the airport would take 20 minutes due to traffic... which was also going to the airport.
We arrived 30 minutes prior to boarding, got our luggage checked in, went through customs and security, did some last minute shopping and boarded two groups behind ours. At the beginning of the day we were stuck in economy with only middle economy plus seats available, by boarding time we had one exit row and one bulkhead seat diagonal from each other thanks to Mark's constant checking of the united site.
The 14 hour flight was rather uneventful- if you haven't seen "The Big Short", I'd recommend watching it. We landed in San Francisco at 7AM, a full 3.5 hours before we departed. By 8:30 we had picked up our rental car, and driven to see our nephew Alex, and his husband Jacob.
After being caffeniated and getting showers, we felt semi human again and wandered down to Beauty's Bagel Shop for brunch. It was a beautiful brunch, tasty too! After that we drove to Berkeley and wandered the campus. It was move-in day so the campus was hopping with old veterans and young newbies alike. We hung out at a bookstore, went to see a Tibetian exhibit at a musuem and had an early dinner at a great little pizza joint and brewery. Our final destination of the day was the hills above Berkeley which gave a great view of the city. We headed back to the airport for a red eye to Atlanta, followed by a quick hop home to Akron/Canton.
By the Numbers:
We flew 27,355 miles on 7 different carriers and 15 different flights
We drove 1605 miles in four different cars on two different sides of the road
We walked 163,920 steps which equates to about 78 miles