Herein lies the photos, notes, and some small commentary on my three-week tour of the Northern Hemisphere, visiting friends and relatives and attempting to purchase my own weight in assorted memorabilia. (I almost made half my own weight. Not a bad effort for a mere three weeks, I think).
Shannon and Amy live in Chicago and Phildelphia, respectively, and I hadn't seen them since 1995.
Ben lives and works in London, moving there in June.
Polly lives and works in Dharamsala (India), moving there in September.
It was going to be a very quiet christmas without Polly and Ben, so it was suggested I stop moping around the place and go visit them. With barely six weeks to go before Christmas, I organised a lot of last-minute travel plans and on December 15, 2001, was waved off at Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport by my parents (who then, I suspect, went and popped the champagne in anticipation of a nice, quiet Christmas. Somewhat prematurely, as they live in the Blue Mountains and by lunchtime Christmas Day were fielding panicky calls about bushfires from all four corners of the globe ... ).
All times in local times and not done in 24-hour time.
| Chicago leg | Dec
15. Depart Sydney 3:05pm. United Airlines, flight UA362. Dec 15. Arrive San Francisco 9:30am. Dec 15. Depart San Francisco 11:05am. United Airlines, flight UA810. Dec 15. Arrive Chicago (Ohare) 5:02pm. |
| Philadelphia leg | Dec
20. Depart Chicago 7:00pm. Dec 20. Arrive Philadelphia 10pm. |
| London leg | Dec
23. Depart Philadelphia 6:05pm. Deutsche Lufthansa, flight LH427. Dec 24. Arrive Frankfurt 7:55am. Dec 24. Depart Frankfurt 9:35am. Deutsche Lufthansa, flight LH4730. Dec 24. Arrive London (Heathrow) 10:15am. |
| Bath leg. | There and back via train. Very civilised. |
| Delhi leg. | Jan
01. Depart London (Heathrow) 9:10am. Deutsche Lufthansa, flight LH4615.
Jan 01. Arrive Frankfurt 11:45am. Jan 01. Depart Frankfurt 1:30pm. Deutsche Lufthansa, flight LH760. Jan 02. Arrive Delhi 1:15am. |
| Home leg. | Jan
07. Depart Delhi 10:00pm. Thai International, flight TG316. Jan 08. Arrive Bangkok 3:30am. Jan 08. Depart Bangkok 8:00am. Thai International, flight TH993. Jan 08. Arrive Sydney 9:00pm. |
Notes about the images:
All
photos were taken with an Olympus Camedia C-700 Ultra Zoom, 128Mb card. Some
images may be quite large; thumbnails have been created where possible. Background
image: the Chistmas Tree outside the Hancock Tower, Chicago, IL, USA.
Photos edited in Camedia Master 2.5 and Graphic Converter.
Website created with Dreamweaver 3.0 and BBedit 5.0