Saturday April 24, 2010 – Going Home

We were up at 5:30am to get ready for our day. It was about 2 hours to the Sydney airport. It was not a difficult drive.

We asked for a wheelchair at check in. I was brought one right at check in. After that I was treated very well. We were able to go through a special area at customs and at security. It was so nice. Charles was able to push me so that we did not need airport personnel with us. We were able to get around in the international terminal on our own. For the rest of the trip a wheel chair was waiting for me at the airplane door. In NZ we had a 4 hour layover and we were able to keep the wheel chair. However in San Francisco we were not able to keep the chair as we had a 7 hour layover. Here you need airport personnel with you and the chair the whole time. It was more difficult. I did not want to sit around for the 7 hours as we had already sat for 11 hours. However if we walked anywhere we had to walk back to our security area. It would have been nice to have the chair to make our way back with. My foot by the end was not very happy. We also did not have the chair for making our way through security. I was really glad we had a chair and golf cart for us at Vancouver. Again it made it so much easier going through customs and getting our bags. Unfortunately, I had to walk out of the international arrival area and on to the outside of the airport.

We were very glad to get to the hotel. I tried to read a little but kept falling asleep after the first page was finished. The first time I saw was 6:30am. Next it was almost 9am. We had to get up and get ready to leave. The hotel had a free continental breakfast which we had to get to before 10am. We had the shuttle booked for 11am.

I did not get a wheelchair at check in. After walking through security there was a golf cart waiting to take us to our gate. My foot was still not over the day before. We were dropped off at the elevator to take us down to the gate. Charles found a wheelchair there which I rode in while we waited for the flight. There was even a chair waiting in Kamloops. It did make getting around a lot easier.

Our ride was waiting for us in the airport. Soon we were home. It was so nice to be with our own things again.