In order to fly for under $700 from Texas to Australia, a few things were required:

1) searching endlessly for weeks to find the flight

2) having enough frequent flier miles to get me to and from LAX for free

3) catching a plane from DFW-Salt Lake City (cue waiting 2 hours) then from SLC-Los Angeles (cue waiting 4 hours) then from LAX-New Zealand (13 hour flight) (cue waiting 4 hours) then from NZ-Sydney.

4) once in Sydney, having to deal with the customs agents and waiting for my 2 massive suitcases (which I still had to pay to checkin through Delta in the U.S.-SO DUMB!)

After all that was done with though, Derek’s mom and sister Jackie picked me up so we could meet him at his favorite restaurant, Pancakes on the Rocks. He wasn’t super surprised when I showed up (thanks to the not-so-secretive people I told that accidentally provided clues that I coming). I was kind of pissed off at first but eventually got over it after I had some amazing raspberry crepes

After dinner we drove to his house where I soon showered and passed out.

Fun fact: the time difference between Texas to Australia is 15 hours.

Tags: 2009, Australia, derek, djsteen, flight, heyitsRachel, jackie, mayo, miles, pancakes, rachel, rocks, steen, Texas, time, trip