USA – Day 1 – The flight over
Day 1 – 16/07/09
The Flight Over
Woke up this morning at 6.30 and Marty dropped me off at the Brisbane Stamford where Ron & Heather were staying. Ron commented that the carpark was full, so he had to park at the entry.
Ron & Heather drove me to the airport with plenty of time to spare. This is the plane that is taking me to America. I still have no idea how they stay in the air for so long.
The plane I hope will get me there.
Flight was fairly full. I was lucky and had a spare seat next to me. I was well behaved this flight. Only had one Jimmy the whole way. (In the past, my lowest count from this same flight previously was 13 – well, I have this theory that after such a long flight, you are going to feel like crap anyway, so you might as well drink up and have an excuse for it.
The meal was nice and luckily I received the last hot breakfast. The people behind me got stuck with corn flakes. Watched a couple of movies. Tried to sleep … dozed of a little, but just couldn’t sleep. 15 hours is a long time in a plane. I have done the flight 17 times before and it just goes on and on and on.
Arrived at LAX at 7am and had a pretty straight run through Customs. Line was short (never experienced that before at LAX) and the Customs fella was even nice – didn’t even question me (I have never had that before). My best LAX experience ever.
Had 2 ½ hours between flights. Walked to the next terminal for the flight to NY. I have to say that we are very lucky with our airports in Australia. We have lots of space and our airports are not crowded at all.
On another QANTAS flight to NY. The plane is just about to back out when the captain speaks up and says that we are going to have a wait of 72 minutes for a take off slot. Just wonderful! Luckily the wait was only about 15 minutes and we were on our way. This flight was full full full and luckily I was upgraded.
After being upgraded, I don’t think I could ever go back to cattle class again. At the pointy end of the plane you get a nice comfortable seat with plenty of room and much more recline, a nice wool blanket with a sheet, they serve your drink in a glass rather then plastic cup and noise cancelling headphones. It was so good that I must of dozed off to a very deep sleep cause I woke up a couple of hours later and had slept through the meal service. They said they tried to wake me, but I didn’t budge. I was getting hungry so they bought me a meal (wonder if they would still do that up cattle class) and another Jimmy.
As we approached New York we had to circle a few times and wait because some bloke called the President was flying to NY the same time as us and apparently was a bit snobby and wanted all the airspace to himself. Just who does he think he is.
Brooke met me at the airport and we drove back to her place, I had a quick shower, we went to a bar for a quick burger which was very tasty. Then it was Dan’s birthday who we met at another bar for a few more drinks.
I got my second wind and was able to keep going before getting home and hitting the sack about 1.30am. Apart from a couple of hours sleep on the plane, I have been awake for 34 hours. Don’t ask me how.
