Back in October 2023, we made a bit of a last minute decision to head off to the US for family wedding. By last minute it was at least 4 weeks before the wedding, but in our usually long-term trip planning, that’s pretty last minute for us! We had been keen to attend the wedding of Anto’s cousin Paul but weren’t sure if we could make it happen. However, after Anto’s dad, my Father-in-law and the kids beloved Grandpa, Trevor, passed away in August, we decided we would make the trip happen. Mikl was also keen to attend his cousins wedding so it became an extended family affair.
The kids might be pretty well-traveled, with Astrid having already racked up 27 countries in her 12 years, and Soren not far behind (poor old Zinnia is way off the mark with Covid lockdowns messing up her globetrotting) they had somehow never been to the USA. Prior to covid, Anto was in the US frequently for work, and we’d hoped to tag along a couple of times, but it just never worked out. I also hadn’t been to US for decades, and never to the East Coast. So an Autumn wedding in Boston, Massachusetts, sounded like a great opportunity.
It’s taken me awhile to catch up on all the prior trips – yes those many Antarctica blogs and then the Cook Islands, but I did manage a few photos here and there during our US adventure. Here is the first installment – a very long journey from Canberra to Boston via Fiji and San Francisco……
Farewell Canberra….. hello Fiji!
With the wedding taking place on Saturday the 28th of October, we had to get ourselves the 16,500km to Boston and hopefully be on the right timezone in time for the celebrations. It was still the school term for the kids, and with our usual packed schedule and last minute travel planning, we ended up snagging some flights direct from Canberra on Fiji Airways. Fiji had started flying direct out of Canberra, earlier in 2023. When you live in the Nation’s capital, with an International airport, but there are virtually no options for international flights, and you have to add on a 3-4 hours to go through Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane to any long haul flight, it’s a giant pain.
We had already booked a family holiday to Fiji for January 2024, on the same direct flights (yes there will eventually be many pictures from that trip). Fiji Airways conveniently has quite a few options to connect to those direct flights out of Canberra, one of which being San Francisco. It turned out to be a rather convenient way of getting the the West Coast of the US, and cut out at least one flight and several hours for us.
So on Tuesday the 24th of October, the kids escaped school at lunch time, and we met up with Mikl and enjoyed the blissfully quick and painless process of getting through security and immigration and into the international departure lounge. With currently only 3 flights a week using the international lounge it was quiet and efficient. A so much more pleasant experience than Sydney international and many hours of transit.
Astrid was motivated to finished some homework to secure uninterrupted device time on the many hours of flying time, and the adults decided a pre-departure gin and tonic would make the next 20 hours more pleasant.
The flight from Canberra to Nadi is just over 4 hours in that direction. While it was an afternoon flight, Astrid decided to use Uncle Mikl as a pillow, an experience that Mikl had endured many times during a previous Europe trip with us. Both Astrid and Soren were much smaller and lighter on that occasion. The other kids just watched endless movies, between the odd nap.
Welcome to Fiji…
We landed in Fiji around 7.30pm and while most of the plane were heading off to enjoy some tropical paradise, it was only a brief but humid stop for us. As we stepped off the plane in Nadi, the thought of heading to a resort for a cocktail and swim was appealing, but it was sadly straight to the international transfer for a TSA security screen and then a couple of hours to kill in the departure lounge.
We might have been a bit weary by our 9.30pm boarding for the flight to San Francisco. That excited energy at the start of the trip had definitely worn off!
Unlike the first leg of the trip from Canberra to Nadi, where the flight was only 2/3 full, we had a full flight to San Francisco, so no spare seats to spread out on. Despite the ungodly hour of the night, the kids wanted to stay awake for another round of dinner. The night passed very slowly watching a string of movies. I had ended up with Zinnia on one side of me and Soren on the other, so I got a total of 5 minutes sleep while Soren watched endless TV and Zinnia wiggled constantly. Astrid seemed to spend most of flight that she wasn’t eating, asleep on Mikl. My 5 mins of sleep was eventually interrupted by breakfast of the third identical meal, the Fiji Airways catering did not involve variety.
As we had been chasing daylight, the second half of the flight was rather bright and not conducive to sleeping. A bit over 10 hours after take-off we landed in a very sunny San Francisco, still on October 24. It was just before 1.30pm and a good hour before we’d departed on the same date, many sleepless hours ago in Canberra.
Sunny San Francisco
The immigration experience took well over an hour. Soren was impressed by the number of American flags everywhere. He was confused as to why they needed so many – ‘do they not know where they are?’. A very good question indeed.
As we emerged into the daylight to attempt to find the shuttle to our hotel, Soren replaced the flag questions with ponderings about the number of enormous cars and vast quantities of Teslas. Meanwhile the girls were suitably tired and pretty grubby.
Our wait for the shuttle took well over 30 minutes, this is the part of travel that is most definitely not fun! We eventually made it to the airport Travelodge (which was definitely not walkable from the airport). As this was only a layover in San Francisco we were happy to stay somewhere cheap and convenient to the airport. The travelodge definitely hadn’t changed since I’d last stayed in similar hotels in the 80s. It was lucky we weren’t spending any time there!
Giant meals and sightseeing via Uber…..
Our flights meant an enforced overnight layover in San Francisco, so we thought we might as well make the most of it and do a little bit of de-jetlagging and sightseeing. Before we set out to see what we could tick off in a few hours, on next to no sleep, we had to deal with the kids imminent starvation.
It was a trade-off between going to an iHop near the hotel, or a short walk to a nearby Denny’s. Someone voted for the Denny’s and while I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry and ordered a very boring omelet, the rest of the gang were apparently starving and participated in some giant American meals.
In the end the giant meals won, and it was time to head off to see if we could find a bridge and a wharf. With the kids having never been to the US, and the three adults having not visited San Francisco since our respective childhoods, we thought we’d do a quick visit to Pier 39 on the San Francisco waterfront for some views of the Golden Gate Bridge, and hopefully Alcatraz.
We’d originally planned to catch the train from our hotel into the Pier, but with the jet-lag settling in fast and it now being after 5pm, we decided on an uber instead. We ended up with a fabulous Uber driver who was happy to do a bit of sightseeing for us on the trip into the city.
Poor old Soren spent pretty much the whole trip sleeping. We could not keep him awake and he missed so many Teslas on the drive. We could tell he’d fallen asleep when the Tesla count stopped.
The sunshine from the afternoon at the airport was being replaced with cloud and approaching fog. As we drove through some of the famous very steep streets of San Fran, the rest of us got some great views but poor old Soren, remembers none of it! Zinnia didn’t take long to copy her big brother, but the rest of us at least had a bit of lazy sightseeing on the drive in.
Pier 39….
Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, is the most visited tourist attraction in San Francisco. Given our limited time, we were keen to be able to catch a glimpse of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz (sadly not enough time to head out there on a tour) and let the kids see the famous sealions at the wharf.
These sealions were quieter and more sedate! Despite our full bellies, the kids were trying to convince us on all manner of sugary things we could buy them.
The temperatuare had well and truly plummeted, from Canberra Spring, Fiji humidity, and the warm sunshine of the afternoon. It was now rather chilly with a ferocious wind, but there was Alcatraz, just poking out of the clouds trying to roll in!
Yep Soren was still a little tired! Even his limited views of Alcatraz were punctuated by jet-lagged yawns. Maybe one day we’ll come back and get a better (and less tired look).
We had a walk around the pier to check out the many boats (a change from counting Teslas) and see if we could find those sealions.
Our hopes and dreams of capturing a beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge were dashed by the fog rolling in fast….. even quicker than the sun was setting. We could just make out the outline of the bridge behind that cloud. Still a pretty view, just not quite the full iconic bridge view.
We did however, get a better view of the famous and noisy sealions that hang out at the pier. The kids thought they were rather hilarious!
As the sun began to set, we got some great views over out towards Alcatraz.
It was a bit cool and windy but we wandered around to see if we could get a bit of a better view of the Golden Gate Bridge as the sun dipped. Sadly the fog was a bit too think but it was a pretty sunset and some crazy cold wind instead!
We might have been cold and jetlagged, but there needed to be an attempt at a group selfie 🙂
We had originally planned to take one of the iconic cable cars on a bit of a scenic trip. Unfortunately it was now getting pretty dark and our energy levels were fading rapidly. Instead we figured we’d at least walk over and have a look at them.
The kids were still keen on going on one, but given how dark it now was, we were more keen on getting back to our hotel and some sleep! The kids did enjoy watching them turn around on the turning platform so that box ticked it was a wander back over to the pier in search of some treats, where they eventually conned us into donuts.
It was a rather brief visit to San Francisco and California, but Soren did get some photographic California evidence!
It was now 7.30pm but about 40 hours since some of us had slept, so it was time to grab an Uber back to our hotel. This time all 3 kids fell asleep on the 40 minute trip back. On the upside there were zero complaints about all being sent to bed by 8.30pm. The adults weren’t complaining either!
Boston here we come…..
The time change meant we were all awake several times, except apparently Soren who was willing to sleep through anything. Sadly we had a 4.45am alarm, as we needed to be on the 5.10am shuttle to the airport. Given our bodies had no idea what time or day it was, it made little difference.
Our connection through to Boston was on Air Alaska. Once we got to the airport we discovered that all 6 of us had been seated in different rows, scattered throughout the plane. While I was happy to have 6 hours of quiet time away from the kids, we didn’t think the poor passengers next to them would be so pleased, nor Zinnia who was only 4 at the time. American airlines being what they are, we couldn’t get this fixed until the gate.
In the meantime we managed to find a giant American breakfast that not everyone could finish. Once our gate finally opened, Anto managed to secure us all seats together, towards the back of the plane. A more ideal situation for all onboard!
By 7am were were ready for take-off, headed East to Boston. During the 5 hours of flight time the kids spend a fair chunk of it napping. Our flight was rather bumpy and we had the seatbelt sign on most of the flight but we all arrived in one piece, just a little weary.
In another time jump, this time forwards, we landed in Boston around 3.30pm. It was a very pleasant 22 degrees in Boston, ironically warmer than it had been last night in San Francisco. After locating our bags and eventually the Silver line bus to the Red line T, we made our way across the Charles River to Cambridge, in peak hour, where we were staying during our time in Massachusetts.
We reached our Airbnb apartment by 6pm Boston time, approximately 44 hours after we’d arrived at Canberra airport the day earlier. Three flights, 16,500km and plenty of screen time later, plus some Fiji warmth and San Francisco sealions and we were all geared up to explore Boston, preferably after a good nights sleep!
Up next…..
Plenty of Autumn sunshine in Boston Commons!
