VISAS REQUIRED!

Fortunately, Michael Beresford picked us up über early to take us to the SB Airport for our 5:55PM flight to LAX. At 4:25, as we rolled our luggage toward the United Airline desk, Ned launched into his usual vacation chant (a la the Berenstain Bears), "Hey! Hey! We're on our way!" As it turns out, his exclamation was a tad premature.

We were so obscenely early that we didn't have to wait in line to check in. We routinely handed over our US Passports while the United agent, Marel, typed in our information. She then looked up with a concerned expression and said that, for some reason, our passports were not being accepted. She then asked if she could please see our Australian visas... Australian visas? Oops! Intrepid travelers that we consider ourselves to be AND having traveled Down Under at least three times before (for Ned this is #4), AND having needed visas on prior trips, we somehow had missed that footnote in the memo.

"Well," says Ned to the dear Marel, "Can you take care of that here for us?" "No," she replied. "We haven't provided that service for at least two years now." She suggested we call United Airlines and see if they could expedite procuring our necessary visas, as Marel could not even let us board the SBA>LAX flight without this pesky detail having been resolved. Well, United Airlines could not help us either, but did advise that we go online, that we could maybe get the necessary visas before the flight to LA was scheduled to depart.

In the end, and good to know, one can obtain an Australian e-visa online. Once I figured out how to create a hot spot with my iPhone so I could get online with my computer (How do kids do anything on the teeny-tiny phone screens?), I then had to figure out what kind of visa we needed (Note: There are more than a few options.). In the end, we got it all done before the flight to LA took off. It cost us $20 each, which we gladly charged to the other kind of Visa, the kind we did have in hand.

We are now at LAX, waiting for our 10:30PM flight to Melbourne (16 hours flight time...). Will post again after we arrive and get acclimated. xoxo, Ann and Ned