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?
