So with my back as cactus as it is, I was
indescribably apprehensive about taking this long haul flight to
LAX. We are 10hrs in and 2hrs to go and so far… I’m not doing too
bad. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is more to do with my
extremely low expectations and many years of learning how to
minimize back pain than actual comfort levels, but I’ll take it
either way. I also have a feeling that going for a massage and
getting all loosey goosey’d up before hitting the flight has helped
considerably too… all week I’ve been tense as they come thanks to
the Latin final from hell, so yay for Emma from Massage Philosophy
at Carindale for doing a good job of loosening up all those Latin
tension knots! We’ve also had plenty of turbulence – bonus! I know
most people wouldn’t look at it that way, but being jiggled about
this much is actually better than being completely sedentary for
the entire duration and the same joints and body points copping all
the pressure for the entire duration… it’s a bit like sleeping on
a boat or a train – almost doesn’t matter how crap your mattress
is, you’re kinda being rocked all night. It would have been nice to
get a few hours sleep, but even I know that was completely
unrealistic and hideously optimistic thinking. Even with a few
G&Ts, a coupla vinos, two or six Digesic and a pair of Valium,
there was never going to be any sleeping for this little black
duck… but I did give it the old college try. I’m loving the
Qantas inflight entertainment… more movies than you can poke a
stick at, and I set myself up a couple of playlists to keep me
occupied, and to drown out the aircraft noise. And while we are at
it… GOD BLESS SENHEISER and their noise cancelling ear bud
goodness! Can’t hear a damn thing while I’ve got these things in,
other than the music/movie of course which hopefully means the
whole ears ringing at the other end will be significantly reduce.
(Thanks too, Mr K for dropping me your adaptor thingy at the last
minute, awesome sauce 🙂 All things considered, this whole long
haul flight thing hasn’t been as awful as I anticipated and I feel
a lot of the anxiety surrounding it was heavily based on
experiences in the past when I was less adept at managing being in
pain – practice makes perfect and all that. Well, it’s 04:30 in LA
at the moment, so that means the flight crew are probably going to
start serving everyone breakfast any minute. :S I guess if this
gets posted up for you all to read when I hit LAX that means that
I’ve managed to find free wi-fi or have found a purveyor of
reasonably priced prepaid US SIM cards at the airport… 😀 …
probably also means there was no unexpected tropical islands,
hatches, weird arse lotto numbers or polar bears on our descent
into Los Angeles! Sorry to disappoint Mr K 😉 Totally spoke too
soon… Arrived at LAX and stood queue number 16 to be processed by
customs. Lots of strange old ladies standing around in blue
‘hi-vis’ vests officiously attempting to look busy while pushing
people from queue to queue. Stood in queue 16 for what seemed like
ages, then got shoved into ’15, cawse there’s no peeple ovar
therya’, before being bumped to 14 which saw us watching as people
from Melbourne that landed half an hour after us were wandering out
to collect their baggage in the Promised Land on the other side of
customs, while myself and other fellow Queenslanders remained
stranded at the mercy of the self important Blue Vest Biddies.
Grrr… So that wasted over an hour. Got out of the TBIT (dunno,
some big whig the terminal is named after while the rest of the
terminals at LAX have illustrious names like Terminal 1, Terminal 4
or Terminal 6) and high tailed it down to Terminal 6 where our
Alaska Airlines flight was going to take us to Vancouver. No
problem right? Except we arrive to check in and found out that the
details Qantas gave us on our itinerary are wrong… wrong flight
number, wrong time, no seating allocation and here’s the awesome
sauce bit – the flight is overbooked and even though we booked and
paid for our flights LAST DECEMBER for some reason we rock up to
the service desk and get told that they are currently looking for
volunteers to take a later flight. O_o We were there for nearly an
hour as the Alaskan Airlines ground staff were calling people over
the PA by name to check their passports, calling people over to
allocate them seats, putting a call over to ask if anyone wanted an
exit row sit (no stampede over that one… felt like I’d slipped
into an alternate universe where no one cared about leg room all of
a sudden?1?) Got called up to the service desk so they could check
our passports, again? And then got called to see them again this
time to give us a goddamn seat allocation! Thank fuck for that. And
thanks to the lack of takers on the earlier exit row offer… we
got asked if we were willing/able to sit in the exit row. So okay,
swiftly decide NOT to mention my chronic physical incapacities and
utter uselessness in the case of an emergency and say, ‘Yes please,
don’t care, just put us on the damn plane.’ *smiles sweetly* …
while thinking to self: I’m alarmed at the complete administrative
clusterfuck I had been watching for the previous hour that totally
looked ‘situation normal’ at Alaskan Airlines. Offered up a silent
prayer to the Universe that their mechanical and fleet maintenance
people are where the company is investing it’s resources… only to
be bitch-slapped by the ‘Verse in the form of a really, really
crappy old plane with broken air con vents stuffed with tissue
paper, strip lighting on the floor with wires hanging out and seats
with the padding visible through cracks in the leather. It’s okay,
it’s okay, must not be paranoid, I’m sure she’s mechanically sound.
And then we taxied out with a mysterious ka-dounk, ka-dounk,
ka-dounk noise coming from somewhere behind and beneath me… No
one else seems concerned though, so that’s something. Right? PS: If
we don’t make it, and someone finds this iPad… can you make sure
CJ gets all my good jewellery (someone has to teach that girl about
the finer things in life 😉 ) and don’t let Mr K sell my guns for
what I told him I paid for them! ‘kthanxbye.
