USA 09/10 – Welcome to the USA!

For once the OnSno.com crew didn’t have to wake at the crack of dawn to catch a flight – the connections today were longer, in terms of time, but contained much less waiting around than had been experienced previously. We left home around 7:30am for the airport, where our first contact with a Qantas staff member was as pleasant as always (end sarcasm).

While our happy-little-helper was fine, until she realised that we weren’t travelling with Qantas more than the first leg and hence made every process twice as hard as it needed to be, she finished our encounter with a low-blow that we had actually lined up in the wrong area and she shouldn’t have helped us at all (but very clearly was capable of doing so).

We said our goodbyes to the crew staying home to mind the base (and work), and hit the skies heading to Melbourne. This flight was uneventful, but the Qantas pilot probably needed to take a few more runs in the simulator before hitting the big-time – this landing was probably the hardest touchdowns ever known to man… or us, at least. The transfer here was relatively painless as our bags were already checked all the way to LAX (oh o… checked all the way always makes me nervous. Checked all the way = no opportunities to sight the bags along the way), however lining up in the United queue to give them our baggage tags (something Qantas couldn’t do) we experienced the “which is the correct line” dilemma as seen earlier in the day. It was either the “Check In” line, although we were already checked-in, or the “Bag Drop” line, although we had no bags. We opted to sit the fence here, and split into two groups. It was just our luck that we ended up last in both of these queues at once – but eventually, the Bag Drop queue proved the most fruitful and fast-moving.

From here, we were checked in (although missed out on potential upgrades to Premium Economy for 5mm additional leg room), and headed out of the country. Unfortunately, this proved a little more difficult than it should as Ed decided to write his birthdate as Christmas day (which it most certainly is not). After a few suspicious looks from the Immigration official, and a number of questions, we were through and on our way. We boarded the 747 which would take us to Sydney (yes, a really economical leg for such a jet I know) and were on our way – no real time for sitting around to laugh about the past few happenings.

This one hour flight was uneventful, except for Ed’s attempt to put on a fireworks show with his bag of mini-pretzels. This violent explosion sent pretzels flying for rows in every direction, showering at least us with the delectable snacks. This wasn’t quite his intention I’m lead to believe, but nonetheless, it was incredibly funny. Oh, and I didn’t mention that this was his second bag of pretzels – probably Karma I guess.

We disembarked the plane in Sydney only to reboard the plane next door in the terminal – although, in light of heightened TSA safety requirements, we had to throw in a full-body pat down and manual hand-luggage search before we could do this. The large line to complete this task left many passengers annoyed, but it nicely gobbled up all the free time we had left. We were very soon on the plane again (one over from the last leg) and on our way. The seats we scored on this leg were not as nice as the earlier ones, and were located in a centre block making neighbouring passengers an issue for spread-out sleeping positions, but nonetheless the flight was relatively uneventful. The two major things that happened were a rough, but quick, bout of turbulence over the tropics that resulted in quite a squeal from the cabin passengers, and also the discovery that both mine and our neighbouring passenger’s headphones port was non-functional. It didn’t bother me, as I didn’t plug in my headphones at all, but it did result in getting a voucher to compensate me for the difficulties – nice! (It was much worse for my neighbour who had brought no books, no ipod and no nothing to entertain him…)

The flight ended with another additional TSA safety procedure – all passengers were required to remain in their seats for the last hour of the flight, with no carry-on items, pillows or blankets to be anywhere near the person. This included a total ban on toilets and the like. While this created a very (very) long line for the loos 20 minutes before the movement curfew, it didn’t cause too much trouble for too many people. We landed in LA without delay to a nice, smoggy day. Visibility was great, at 9 miles…

After an hour or so of standing around, we cleared Customs and Immigration (yes, Ed had learnt his correct birthdate now) and headed out to catch the shuttle to our hotel. This was very uneventful, and we checked in with no issues. A quick nap and shower later, and we were back on the street; this time walking back to the airport to catch a shuttle to the nearest train station, Aviation, on the Greenline. The Greenline service took us West, where we changed trains to the Blueline, taking us North. It was the Blueline that was the real LA eye-opener – homeless people, everywhere… and lots and lots of mobsta’, gangsta’-style peeps. Quote of the day from one such individual: “It’s not about the hoods… nah, it’s about the cheddar cheese”. Umm.. OK. Here we witnessed talk about girls, drugs, and even strangers exchanging wrapped Christmas presents (although we didn’t dare stick around while they opened them).

At the end of the line, we had reached Downtown LA – Ed’s vision of a shopper’s paradise. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Downtown was really the business district of the city, and there was very (very) little shopping to be done here. We had a late lunch at Carl’s Jr., a typical American burger joint, and only on leaving did we realise the healthier and cleaner options available. If we hadn’t done this, however, Pip would never have had to pay 25c to use the toilet – which was an experience of its own.

We walked the streets for as long as we could convince ourselves to, but found nothing but closed office buildings and underground shopping precincts that were totally derelict on a Sunday. We returned to Macy’s, had a quick look around, then decided to head out towards the Staples Center – our next destination and home to the LA Clippers (nearly bottom of the NBA ladder) and their opponents the Boston Celtics (nearly the top of the NBA ladder). Unlike Downtown, things were really alive around the Staples Center and we looked at the many sights and sounds here until the stadium opened at 5:30pm (well after it was dark).

On entry, however, Ed had his video camera confiscated for being a video recording device (we didn’t mention that our still camera which was allowed took video of reasonable quality as well)… The game was a cracker, being much closer the entire way than anybody expected. A few hot dogs, some popcorn and a giant pretzel later, (pretzels seemed to be the common thread today), we cheered on the Clippers to victory – one of only very few this season. Amongst the crowd of 19,000, the atmosphere was electric. The fact that it was 87-90 (Boston’s way) up until about a minute before the end, then 90-90 until 1.4 seconds before the end helped as well. This was a great experience, and was certainly helped by the fact that the game wasn’t a complete thumping.

We decided to catch a taxi back to the hotel, rather than the lengthy and “interesting” train ride we had experienced on the way out, and this certainly proved to be the speedy option. This capped off 36 (or so) hours of being on the go, and although I had slept a little more than others on the flight over, the fatigue was beginning to set in properly.

Hopefully a good night’s sleep tonight before another big day tomorrow. Check out the (new) photo gallery located here, and make sure that you take a quick look at today’s photo mash up below if you can’t be bothered looking at the gallery.

About the Author

Scott

Web designer, graphic designer, coder, scripter, photographer, musician, performer, entrepreneur (and the list goes on) based in Adelaide, South Australia. Scott loves to experiment with new ideas, and OnSno.com is his creative dumping ground.