The saga of the finger

Well, we are in Sydney after an eventful 36 hours getting here and spending our first few hours.  As I said in my previous post, I was concerned about the time between our arrival in LAX and our check-in with Fiji Airways.  So we decided to go to the airport early and see if we could get on an earlier flight.  Before I left home, I moved my plants up from my lower level to the first floor.  In doing so, I tripped up my stairs and jammed my middle finger on the riser.  I didn't think much about it at the time.  I momentarily thought of removing my ring on that finger but I had plenty of other things on my mind.

Anyway, I went to my sister Felicia’s.  Her daughter Meredith was coming with me, so Felicia took us both to the airport.  Before we left, Felicia, who has a good handle on these things, said she could see only good things for the trip.  And it did seem to be that way when we got to the airport.  We got on the earlier plane with no problem (and $75 each, of course), and we were on our way.  After a couple of glasses of wine to toast our trip.  Though we did have to do some massaging of our luggage to make them light enough.

Amazingly, the US Airways flight that took us to LAX had absolutely no entertainment—no video, not even any music.  And, of course, no food, unless you had purchased a meal in advance.   Meredith mentioned that the oil prices have declined a lot lately, but that is unlikely to be reflected in either the prices of flights or the amenities.  We arrived in LAX on time and had plenty of time to check-in at Fiji Airways.  The Fiji check-in counter was not crowded.  On the other hand, we were very early.

I have always prided myself on packing light, but on this trip I have really fallen down on the job.  I had to take my laptop toiletry bag out of my checked-bag to avoid paying an extra $100.  Here is what I don’t understand.  Why is it OK to carry that extra weight in my carry-on but not in the checked baggage?  I was able to put the lap-top back in the bag for the Fiji flight but I had to put the shampoo in Meredith’s bag (why?) where it did not fit, so I was still carrying it. 

We spent entirely too much for a hamburger and fries at a nice restaurant at LAX

 and were on our way.  The Fiji plane was very nice and they did give us two meals during the flight.  Meredith managed to find three seats together so she was able to stretch out for the fight and pick up some Z’s.  I didn’t think I had slept that much but I guess I did considering I could not remember much of the flight.  Plenty of entertainment—thought the quality was somewhat lacking. 

At this point, I was getting concerned about my jammed finger.  My middle finger was ballooning up and my ring was now digging into my skin.

The finger did not really hurt—it was not throbbing, as you might expect, but it was annoying and I was concerned that I might risk nerve damage because the ring was cutting off my circulation.  This is the modern world, of course, so we Face-timed my sister Marie, the nurse, at the Fiji airport and she was very adamant that we get the ring off my finger.  She said we should get a shoe lace and use it to pull off the ring.  Well, we had no shoe lace.  Meredith said she would go and but some at the Nike store in the duty-free section of the airport—the only modern part of the airport, I might add. 

We arrive in Fiji.

About Fiji--One of the only long lines we were in for the whole trip was the one after we got off our first flight from Lax to Fiji.

We waited in line while a single woman (joined later by another) used a pencil to mark off our names and ask how many bags we had checked.  Talk about low-tech!  Then we had to go through security again, despite the fact that we had not left the secure portion of the airport.  And our bags were searched again before we got on the plane. I can’t tell if they were hyper-concerned about security or if the airport was so porous that they had to check again and again.  I think it might be the latter.

Anyway, turns out that the Nike store does not sell shoelaces alone, so Meredith, being the lovely person that she is, bought a pair of shoes to get the laces.  I wish I had been with her.  I would have said don’t do it.  In any case, we tried the procedure with the shoe laces, and it was excruciating.  That was not going to work.  We asked whether there was a first aid office in the airport.  But it was Sunday—Saturday in our time—and there was no doctor.  I could leave the airport and find a doctor—but I would likely miss my connecting flight and the airport personnel could not say how much it would cost.  After a lot of hoopla at the airport, during which one particular lovely fellow expressed concern about my health and the rest of them told me why they couldn't help, we decided to get on the flight to Sydney. 

At the Sydney airport, we learned that there was no doctor at the airport on Sunday and the security guy suggested I go to a nearby hospital.  I was not ready to do that.

A word about security in Sydney—it is fabulous, at least for people from the UK, New Zealand and the USA.  We were directed to kiosks where we could scan our passports.  The kiosk issued cards that we then put into another kiosk.  At that point we were instructed to look straight ahead.  Our picture was taken and apparently the picture was analyzed to make sure it was the same person as pictured in our passports.  And that was it.  It took about 5 minutes.  We were through and asking ourselves if we had missed something.   Meredith says the USA should take a hint and use the same system.

We took a taxi to our apartment.  We got there about an hour before check-in time.  At the apartment was the cleaner—not the kind of person I would have expected.  He was at least 70, with sunken cheeks, wearing a wife-beater and he spoke essentially no English.  How this man makes his way around Sydney is beyond me.  He sort of knew the word key—but even that was iffy.  He indicated very shakily that he wished we would leave while he finished cleaning in one hour.  So we headed for Bondi Beach.

It was raining and a bit chilly and yet there were plenty of people on the beach.  We figured the water must be warmer than the air.  We walked along the beach until we came to a bar called The Bucket List.

We went in and were greeted by someone who sounded American.  Turns out her name was Emily and she was from Delaware.  What were the odds?  It’s unusual to run into someone from Delaware even in the US.  She was really nice and gave us some recommendations for what to do in Sydney.

We went back to the apartment and took showers.  Now we had been in the same clothes  for about 36 hours, so any shower would have been nice. The apartment was in a nice area, and was clean, but we were disappointed in the lack of any information about the apartment or the area.  But that shower made up for it, at least for a while.

By this time, I was getting really concerned about my finger.  I remembered my sister Marie saying I absolutely had to get the ring off.  I figured I could go to a clinic and they would either drain the finger, give me anesthetic to help get the ring off, or both.  So we took the bus down to the address we had gotten when we used the internet at the Bucket List (we did not have internet at the apartment at that point).  The waiting room was pretty packed,

so when the receptionist told me I would have to wait just half an hour, I was skeptical.  But about 20 minutes later I was seeing a doctor who had me explain four or five times how I had injured myself.  You would think he had never seen someone who tripped UP the stairs before.  Anyway, he said I would have to go to a hospital to get the ring cut off. 

So reluctantly, we headed for the hospital he recommended, thinking we were in for it.  I expected to see hordes of people waiting for services.  Instead, we talked to the lady at the desk right away.

She was terrific, as were all the other people we dealt with there.  I had expected them to have a big set of scissors to cut off the ring.  Instead this really lovely nurse from Argentina via Canada used what I would call a dremel to cut through the ring. It got hot a couple of times and I had to stick my finger in a glass of ice—something I had been doing all along.  There were a lot of people around, all seeming to want to see how it was done.  But at the end it was just the nurse Nadia, Meredith and I—cause after a while it was just boring. 

When the ring was off, my finger was immediately better and has been improving since then.

 We asked the lady at the desk if there was a grocery store nearly, and not only did she say yes, she brought us through the back way, down many hallways and around many turns, and pointed us the way to the grocery store.  We bought some food for the morning and went home.  We tried to stay up for a little bit, but it was no use.  We were both asleep almost immediately.  On the couch.  When I woke up on my couch, Meredith was so deeply asleep on hers that even shaking her did not wake her up.  She was in her own bed by morning.

Truth is, there were other things that happened on our first day, but I have eliminated them for brevity—and this is not so brief.  More about our travails with the internet and our great day today tomorrow.