Spending the night in Olympia at Sausage Software survivor Nathan Allan's B&B, The Swantown Inn. It's good to finally decompress after what would probably be my worst trip across the Pacific in terms of things going wrong along the way. Since this was Jess's first introduction to international air travel (New Zealand doesn't count), there have been some trying times over the past 48 hours. A play-by-play of the trip follows.

Melbourne: After organising package to meet us at hotel in Portland, discover we're booked at the airport hotel instead of the convention centre hotel. Spent four hours finding a decently-priced room close to the venue, and ended up compromising on both points.

Dropped the guinea pigs off at auntie Patti's, and got an email from them by the time we got home. Attended the Impro Melbourne Choir's second rehearsal. Nice way to take the edge off the travel nerves.

After missing a tram and then lugging out bags from the train to the airport shuttle bus, decided a taxi would have probably been worth it. Barely made it out of Melbourne before a severe storm descended on the city. A fortuitous start.

Jess's headphones didn't work right on this flight, continuing her unbroken record of malfunctioning airplane seats.

Sydney: Flight out was tardy by some 90 minutes due to late arrival of aircraft, yet at every stage we were assured we would make our planned arrival time at Los Angeles regardless. Discovered our flight was stopping in Honolulu. Is the direct Sydney to Los Angeles flight a myth?

At a Samsung public web access point (Internet Explorer 5.0---argh!), Jess discovered by chance that the browser had been left logged into Neopets. I couldn't talk her into stealing the poor, unsuspecting child's accumulated fortune. Would have taught him or her an important life lesson.

Jess's movie screen on the flight would only work if you leaned on the controls a certain way.

Honolulu: Bleary-eyed and balmy immigration routine quickly gave way to icy cold panic by the baggage carousels when I misplaced our passports, boarding passes and itineraries. After 15 minutes of scouring the floors of the terminal, found them in a hidden pocket of the laptop bag, where I had tucked them in a stupour. Jess was not impressed.

Los Angeles: Of course, we landed about 90 minutes late. Announcement said our bags would be automatically transferred to destination, but a surly security guard at the carousel informed us otherwise. By the time we got our luggage, we had missed our connection to Portland.

The nice lady at Alaska Airlines booked us on the next flight out---first thing the next morning---and let us know Qantas owed us hotel and meals. Jess was running on empty as we scoured the airport for a Qantas customer service desk (there is none). Eventually, rocked up to the "Ticketing/Excess Baggage" counter (services none of the umpteen-odd other people in line were there for either). At first, the lady didn't believe we had missed our connection, but the four people in line behind me turned out to be in the same boat, so two hours after landing in Los Angeles we were on our way to the Mariott for a much-needed rest.

Rest was not on the cards, however, as the Mariott reception clerk informed us that Qantas does not pay its hotel bills (a sucker punch to my blooming Aussie pride), and so we would have to wait until they could contact Qantas and arrange for it to make the payment through a booking agency. A greasy, late night dinner at the hotel sports bar had us laughing off the pressures of the day, and by the time we returned to reception to find that Qantas was not answering its phones we were too tired to care and paid for our four hours of remaining sleep ourselves.

Morning brought a rude awakening, as I had not adjusted my new watch's alarm for the time change (it needed to be adjusted separately from the main time display). With 20 minutes until check-in for our flight closed, we scrambled to dress, pack, and dash. A note under the door informed us that Qantas had managed to pay for our room while we slept.

Had we slept five more minutes, we wouldn't have made our flight to Portland. As it was, we had to pay $50 to upgrade to business class so that we could sit together. The seats had no electronic features, however, so Jess's worked perfectly.