D-Day. Woot!

Woot! Today...just for something different....we will fly to Los Angeles. I still can't wrap my mind around that. Surely I must be dreaming? I am positive we will get to the airport, and then drive home again. I can't even picture myself boarding a 747!

The Bear and I have stayed overnight at a hotel near the airport. We stayed at this motel when he had a number of flights, including an international one, a few years ago. It just wasn't worth him driving back to Toowoomba between the flights so we decided to have a night in Brisbane to make it easier for him. On that occasion, the motel was excellent! Clearly the management has changed. When the Bear checked us in, he was greeted (for want of a better word) by an arrogant, aging Asian woman who apparently felt that he was interrupting her TV viewing. The foyer looked worn, the lift had serious issues, the carpets stained and tired, and the room absolutely reeked of bleach. In fact, the bleach was so strong my eyes burned. I started itching uncontrollably and add to that I wore an armful of chocolate ice-cream as a result of an altercation with the ice-cream machine at Sizzler (which Alyx thought was the funniest thing she had ever seen/heard) and I was a mess. It was just ghastly! That being said, the bed was nice and firm so I did get a few hours sleep. I am waaaaay tired this morning however. I guess that is a good thing as I will need to try and sleep on the plane. If I don’t I will crash and burn when we get to L.A.

I would just like to take this opportunity by the way to say that I absolutely HATE typing on a laptop!  This one is possessed!  And no, it does not have anything to do with the typist.  I apologise in advance for the multiple typos, incorrect punctuation and horrendous dummy spits that I have over the coming weeks!

Speaking of L.A. the temperature there today apparently will be 27 degrees with an overnight temperature of 14 degrees. Nice! The Bear suggested I pack my togs (keep an eye out for a news headline "Mystery surrounds beached whale in inner city Los Angeles" ) so I did!

 

 I am still confused by the time differences. I am told that L.A is + 7 hours and minus a day, to our time here. We were thinking it was +6 - 1 day however this has been corrected. I am not sure how I will go with trying to turn my medication time table upside down - I have certain ones I have to take in the morning and certain ones that I have to take at night time. It won’t be a simple case of reversing these, especially seeing as we will not only experience the change in time zones when we get to LA...but we will travel through several time zones as we make our way across the country. I guess if I come home with a full beard and a third nipple (yes Ma...a nipple) I will know that I have stuffed things up a tad!

 

October 30 - Take 2. After crossing the International Date Line. (Be sure to read the one below this....first!)

Ground hog day.  We left Brisbane Airport pretty much on time. The Bear and I were in Business Class in the nose of the jumbo however it wasn’t quite what I expected. It seemed sort of sterile and colourless. The staff were less than enthusiastic which sort of set the mood for the flight. I was fairly impressed with the fact that we had chairs which you could lay down completely into a bed if you so wished, and the fact that there were little TV screens in the back of the chair in front. Mind you, I could not co-ordinate these two features to work together. The remote control for the TV did not work properly and the chair had a mind of its own. So...if I reclined my chair in one of the several ways that were available, and wanted to change the channel on the TV, I could not change it with the remote control. Nor could I get the chair to sit upright properly again to reach the TV without adopting some yoga pose with my tongue hanging out at an odd angle. If I wished to push my friendship with the remote control I would find that instead of changing the channel, I would turn on the bright light above the Bears head!  Needless to say, I struggled with the chair and the remote for the entire flight!

The flight was relatively uneventful although the early night fall seemed bizarre. When we left Brisbane, it was almost as though we said to the sun “ok...race you to LA”. The sun kept going in its direction, yet we were travelling back in time in the opposite direction. Just for the record, we won by a long shot. With us and the sun travelling in opposite directions, we experienced night fall at around 3pm Brisbane time. We had already had lunch/dinner a little bit earlier, so the flight attendants started preparing our bodies for the adjustments with the time zones. They decided it was “lights out” and darkened the cabin. This felt completely ridiculous and I stayed watching TV like a stubborn teenager. At around 4.30pm Brisbane time, we crossed the equator and the Bear welcomed me to the Northern Hemisphere. Half an hour later we had the seatbelt sign come on with an instruction from the pilot to sit down and buckle up. The Bear told me that it was typical to experience severe storms just over the equator due to the trade winds and some other weather thingy clashing. The pilots did an amazing job weaving in and out of the storm systems although we got up close and personal with some lightening. I got a little bit of video footage of this. By 7pm Brisbane time we were passing Hawaii and it suddenly dawned on me that we were a long way from home!

 

I managed to get about an hours sleep on the flight which I am very grateful for. We are going to try to stay awake all day so that we sleep tonight and get our bodies adjusted to the time difference. We arrived at LAX a little earlier than scheduled. The city was covered in a thick blanket of fog and given that it was still dark, I couldn’t see a damned thing! I had been waiting to see the “Hollywood” sign from the air but this wasn’t to be the case. When we pulled up at the airport, we ended up being kept on board for an extended still period as there was a problem attaching the aerobridge to the plane. I would have thought that this would have been something that the airport crew might have been experienced in doing – apparently not. *insert confused look here* The extra time on board was worth the wait however because when we finally disembarked, a kind yank standing at the door of the aircraft said “welcome to Los Angeles Ma’am” in a thick American accent. I would have shined his shoes had he asked!

 

The Bear wanted us to get to immigration and customs as soon as possible so that we didn’t have to wait the expected couple of hours to get through the lines. We ran (???) along the several travelators and along the several kilometres (exaggeration?) of corridors in the very 60s looking airport.  I seriously pictured LAX to be more like the airport from "The Jetsons" so I was somewhat disappointed.  We got to customs and found we did reasonably well although still had quite a wait. The Americans take their security very seriously and I watched with amusement as one official came out of his little glass box to request that a patron “kindly step back behind the yellow line Sir!”. I wanted to be the rebel and put my foot over the same yellow line! I did a little toe tap across...and did so without being caught! I felt like a Ninja Renegade! Feeling quite chuffed with this, I thought I would stand in line and floss and wanted to dare the officers to come and tell me not to do that. Sadly....they didn’t. When we finally came to the top of the queue the Bear and I went through and suffered the third degree by a Mexican looking American Customs Officer. He was very interested in trying to trip the Bear up with his occupation and his reasons for coming to America. He also became impatient with me when I apparently wavered whilst being finger printed (yes....finger printed). He mistook my inability to balance on one foot and conduct a twister type manoeuvre with the other, as being some kind of nervousness. He felt the need to ask me to relaaaax. Relax? I wasn't uptight! I was just happy to be there!

 

The same interrogation came when we went through quarantine although the officer seemed more interested in something that was happening over my shoulder. In any case, we were across the border and entered into the United States of America! Mind you I didn't realise this at first.  For some stupid reason (sleep deprivation perhaps?) I thought we had a third part of the border to cross so was very surprised when we exited the terminal and started our epic length journey to the Hertz Depot.

 

In my first half hour of being in the United States, I came across my first “Snapple” machine; experienced my first drive on the wrong side of the road; saw my first "Burger King"; found ourselves in a very well-to-do LA neighbourhood; and found an extremely suitable husband for Alyx! (Long story Eames. Lets just say he looked like Castle, earns a good income, and is based between your home and ours!)

 

I type this having just checked in to our motel at Marina Del Ray (near Venice Beach).  The bed looks overwhelmingly inviting however I will go the distance and try to stay awake until tonight. The TV is on and the channels are filled with details of damage from Hurricane Sandy.  Seriously, they Americans would have loathed living in North Queensland.  This was a Cat 1 storm so was minor compared to some that are regularly felt in the deep north.  I realise that this occurred in an area that wasn't used to weather events like that, but putting on news reports to explain how to lodge an insurance claim?  Atlantic City has got a large amount of flooding although I don't know whether this was from rain or storm surge.

 

I know it is around 3.30am at home which means it is 10.30am the day before, here. It feels like it is late afternoon though.  I think that might be because of the angle of the sun?  It is autumn/fall here, although that shouldn't really be any different to home. The sun came up way later than it does at home.  At 7am it was still pitch black which totally screwed with my head!  I wonder what time the sun will go down?

 

October 30 - Take 1!

Less than 24 hours ago I was leaving the motel near the airport. Strangely we saw the wrong side of Australians.

The Bear had booked a cab the night before...to pick us up from the motel at 7am. Right on time a young Indian looking cab driver pulled up and loaded our suitcases into the boot. We hopped in and were about to head off when another cab pulled up. An Australian driver got out and peered into our cab. He looked at the cab driver and stuck his head right in the window. He looked at our cab drivers computer thingy that sits up on the dashboard and then looked over to us in the back. He asked us if we “were right with this”. The Bear answered “yes...why wouldn’t we?” It so much what the Aussie cab driver said....it was how he said it. It reeked of racism and we felt the need to apologise to the cab driver on behalf of all Australians.

We arrived at the airport three and a half hours before our flight. That gave us time to check in and go through security and customs. The Bear set off the alarm at least 3 times and had to remove his watch, his wallet and his belt before he could go through properly. Once he successfully passed through security he was approached by a security officer who requested a “pat down”. This was a little more than checking for traces of drugs – it was a full on pat down/frisk search. I felt that this was hideously unfair and requested a pat down too! The officer politely declined and told me that a female officer would have to do that if it were necessary. I respectfully stated that this was not necessary and put the offer out to him again. Again this was declined...with the officer saying there were too many camera’s. This was blatant discrimination don't you think?  *sigh*

Clearly I was in for a different sort of day. I went to use the bathroom before going through customs and was surprised to see the ladies bathroom empty with a long line of immaculately clean toilets. I had my choice of around 12 cubicles so decided I would use one smack bang in the middle. I was again admiring the cleanliness and the pleasant music that was being piped through whilst I was having my tinkle.....so imagine my surprise when I found the toilet paper dispenser empty. Given that I had left my handbag out with the Bear, I couldn’t even try to fish for an old used tissue! I wondered what the odds were of being able to “drip dry” within 30 seconds, but figured this would be going against the theme of the day. I yanked my dacks up half way and was just about to unlock the cubicle door and make a bandy legged dash to the next cubicle when another patron came in. I listened to see if she might have gone into a cubicle on either side of me. I figured that someone wouldn’t mind if I called out and asked for a few sheets to be placed under the stall wall – however the woman entered a stall right at one of the ends. Not keen to be caught literally with my pants down, I decided to wait the couple of minutes until the other patron had gone. Needless to say of course she wasn’t just there for a wee, and I listened to the "William Tell Overture " whilst tapping my toe impatiently. It was clear that bugle bum wasn’t going to wrap this up in a hurry, so whilst she continued with natures calling, I yanked my pants back up half way and did the bandy legged dash to the next stall. And yes....there was ample toilet paper in there!

1 More Sleep!

Well I have just said bye to Nicco, the cats and the dogs. It was probably less melodramatic than I thought it was going to be which is a good thing. I am guessing the mood was a little less than expected given that Ella was overwhelmed to be going in the car WITH the cats and Schultz, and therefore considered it to be an appropriate time to have a mind out. With the Bear yelling at her to "GET DOWN!" my expected long and tearful goodbye was reduced to a "see ya!". I suspect that I am putting on a little false bravado however. *sigh*

Anyway.....what else is there to tell you. *Thinks* Oh yeah, that's right. 1 MORE SLEEP!!! Did I happen to mention that tomorrow I am going on a 747 (that's right....a real JUMBO JET! Wooooooot!)? The Bear has done this a million times before, however I have not even seen one up close and personal let alone been on one. Last night The Bear was showing me the seating on board a 747. That is one f**k off big airplane! I hope it manages to stay in the air for the required amount of time!

Overnight I have watched news reports of the earthquake off Canada which lead to an expected tsunami off Hawaii. Mind you, my "Sunday Night" program was delayed 20 minutes because CNN felt they had first class tickets to the end of life as we know it. We waited with baited breath watching the cameras focused on the waters off Hawaii expecting to see an exterminating life level event (which some dickhead in Hawaii actually APOLOGISED for NOT having!) however was nearly lulled asleep by the gentle waves rolling in. Also overnight there has been another shooting - although in this instance it was someone shooting at cars on a freeway. The worst injury I believe was to a motorist who got a bullet in his butt. I don't recall which town/city/state that was in. Also, people are being evacuated from New York due to Hurricane Sandy bearing down. I am guessing she will have fizzled out by the time we get there although at this rate I am expecting that we will arrive in time to experience "the big one" in Los Angeles. God I hope not!

So tomorrow we depart at 10.30am. We arrive in L.A at 6.30am the same day. This is still doing my head in! Apparently this will be about 12.30am Toowoomba Time. We won't be able to check in to our hotel at Marina Del Ray until the afternoon, so the Bear says we should just take a drive so that I can see things like Hollywood Boulevard, Rodeo Drive and Beverley Hills. I am fairly sure that I am going to be expecting to see Julia Roberts striding along in those long, tacky boots; or see Eddie Murphy pull up in a clapped out vehicle whilst shoving banana's up the exhaust pipe of another. I think I watch too much TV! Speaking of television, we are going to delay our trip to Universal Studios until Thursday rather than Wednesday. Wednesday is Halloween and the Bear thinks that perhaps there might be a few too many people hitting Universal Studio's on that day. My question is, how will we know the difference between the people who dress up for it, and the actual freaks! Or more importantly, how long will I be able to carry off the story that I am playing dress-up versus this-is-actually-me?!

Look out America. Here we come!

T Minus 4 Sleeps

Well it's now only a matter of days until the Bear and I board a big old jet airliner which will take us to another hemisphere, another season, another time zone. This seriously does my head in. The United States are in my yesterday and I am in their tomorrow. The Bear tells me it is easy to convert the times from US to Australia - just add six hours and take off one day. Unfortunately this has me land somewhere in a year B.C (which I still think is BS!) and I am firmly convinced that I am going to be lost in some "time warp" or travel in a " hot tub time machine" ending up somewhere dressed in pig tails and bobby dazzler socks (not that I mind because they were seriously cool!).

I have wondered what sort of plan of attack the Bear and I can adopt to ward off boredom during the lengthy plane flight. I have never travelled this far before by plane and quite frankly I find the prospect a little daunting. The Bear has done this many times before - where as my experience in travelling that long to get anywhere was being squished up in the back of a Holden Premier which burned rubber up and down the Bruce Highway between Cairns, Townsville and Brisbane. We were couped up in a space that did not have the room to swing a mouse, let alone a cat, yet my siblings and I managed to go the distance without iPod, iPhone, laptop or tablet. We sat four kids across (including my baby brother in his car seat) which was cramped, hot and sticky. The closest we ever came to having air-con was when the front windscreen was smashed. We were absolute champions in coming up with ideas with the letters on other cars number plates. My personal favourite was when my step-sister Sharon was being creative with a number plate that ended in NMB. I have never laughed so hard for a good 400 kilometres before. Should I tell you what she came up with? Nah I guess you had to be there.

Back to my flight. I guess I won't have the opportunity to be bored given the extremely ample television viewing that is supplied. However more important is my own plan of attack in case it is needed. A back up plan if you will. I fully intend on eating my way across the International Date Line! Airline food is pretty crappy on domestic flights however the Bear tells me this is entirely different on an international flight. He has told me we even get a menu. A menu a mile high up? What the? HOW COOL IS THAT?! I will be taking photos of the food AND things like the menu therefore keeping myself occupied. I will be eating strictly with the intent of being proactive in my own endeavour to ward off boredom. It will have nothing to do with the fact that I am a pig. *rolls eyes*

Speaking of photos, I won't be able to take photos of anything out the window....because all there will be, is lots and lots of water. Lots of ocean. Lots of water carrying sharks. Killer sharks. Water carrying sharks, and whales, and sting rays and probably some giant squid. Hmmmm....now that would be a long way to swim.....in a place where there is a LOT of sharp teeth......if anything goes a little awry......

Stay tuned people as the Bear and I cross the entire United States of America. Lord knows absolutely anything and everything will happen. If it doesn't happen, I will just make it up! You will be kept informed!