Setting off: Our trip to Australia started off Thursday morning around 8 a.m. when we headed to the airport for our 10 a.m. Thai Airways flight to Bangkok. The airport is only about a 10 minute drive from home, and when we arrived we headed straight for the check-in counter where we ran into some trouble. My visa approval was not in the Thai Airways system, although I had received a letter stating that it was approved well before our trip.
Having worked in the Australian Embassy in the visa department and being good childhood friends with her replacement, Peep called her at home and she rushed into the office. She faxed a statement to the airport stating that my visa was approved. Thai Airways does not allow international travelers to board without an approved visa. As it turns out, the approving supervisor of the department was on maternity leave and the replacement did not realize she was required to approve the new, electronic visas as well as the paper visas. Mine must have been the first electronic visa. Peep was okay, because she had a paper visa. Of course, we were bound to encounter the same confusion in Bangkok, since the system is only updated once a day overnight, but we had a six-hour layover to take care of it.
After our transfer in Bangkok, we boarded the red-eye to Sydney and settled in for the 9-hour flight. Peep managed to sleep several hours, but I only got about two hours.