Strangers on a Plane

As per standard, no trip of mine would be a true trip of mine without the appearance of some interesting characters. Several of them have already surfaced thus far and all I have been doing is traveling.

Honestly though, this really got off the ground as a full on “amyesque” trip beginning before my feet ever left the ground in the nati. Mom had taken me to the airport and was just intending to drop me off and go again after I passed through security. I think American airlines is staffed mostly by incompetent people who are insistent upon taking as long as possible to complete each task. There were five people in line maybe and we waited for nearly a half an hour. I was a little bit iffy on my bag weight because although I packed everything Friday night and then turned around an took a whole stack of stuff out (hey, I know I over pack so I was trying…) my bag was still pretty frickin heavy. As in, I thought I might throw my back out lifting it heavy… ok that might be an exaggeration but it was pretty close. Turns out when I put my bag up there (empty pockets and all) it still weighted 50.5 lbs. I honestly have no idea what in the world I have that weighs so much. It did concern me though because according to my paper work, baggage restrictions (size and weight) are “strictly enforced.” I can see them now looking at my bag and going… “you know, that looks like it might be too heavy… we better weigh it. Sorry lady, your bag is 6.5lbs too heavy. Youre going to have to leave your shoes behind.” Which would kind of upset me because this is the least amount of stuff I have packed for a long trip like this before. I mean, I only brought 5 pairs of shoes this time…

Anyway, I went to say goodbye and go through security and the lady told me I didn’t need to go through until about a half hour before. So mom decided to hang out for a while and the kind british lady pointed us in the direction of starbucks (I hate starbucks by the way) to go kill time. So we just chilled and people watched until it was time for me to get back. Im pretty sure I don’t need to point out that people watching at an airport is really entertaining. Mom got all excited when she saw a guy walking back with a dole box with a pineapple in it. Guess what everyone is getting from them for Christmas?

So a little before hand we walked back to security so I could go on through. The guy watching the metal detector was really enjoying himself when I went through. See, I have this tendency to no matter what set off the security alarms. Its always something and I end up having to go through security half naked to make the alarms not go off. This time however I managed to walk straight through with no problems which really surprised the tsa guy. He told me he didn’t think I would make it through dressed the way I was since I had buttons up both legs of my pants and the buckles on my Birkenstocks. He was like “I was really wondering what you were going to do when you set the alarms off because you cant take those pants off…” and I was thinking “yeah in your dreams buddy.” Being the seasoned traveler that I am however I was fully prepared with a pair of shorts underneath my tearaways just incase. Plus, im going someplace where it is summer so why would I not wear shorts?

Not even five minutes after I sit down at my gate the gate lady comes on and says that our incoming plane has been delayed and we wouldn’t be taking off until 430. and remember how I mentioned previously that it was about 75% likely that I would be driven to tears during the trip? I almost made it before I even officially started my trip. They way they have my flights set up is that I don’t have much time to connect between each of my flights so if I miss one or one is delayed Im pretty close to being screwed. So on top of being really nervous like usual when I travel I was stressed out that I wasn’t going to make my flights – along with other people. When I finally got to talk to the gate agent she pretty much said to me that they were going to keep me on this flight and then if I missed my connection in Chicago, they would figure out how to get me where I needed to go then. She says to me “we’ll get you there eventually. It just all depends on when.” Way to make me feel better lady. Basically, what would have happened if I missed my flight would have been that I would have missed the connection to LAX and then my connection to Sydney. However, there was a later flight to LAX and then to Sydney. I would have just had to get each flight rearranged. I already stress out when I travel anyway so this just didn’t make it any better. Funny how I can be so laid back about almost everything but not traveling.

Finally our plane arrived and we boarded. The captain was a real comedian. He came on and started to tell us that the original plane had developed an oil leek that he didn’t think was a problem but American airlines thought they should do something about. I must not have looked too good at this point because when we were getting ready to take off, this older black man who was sitting across the aisle from me looks at me and asks “are you ok?” and I said yes just to get rid of him and told him that flying makes me nervous. His reply “well, if it makes you feel better you can hold my hand.” And I couldn’t decide if he was being nice or just being a creepy old man. I politely declined his offer.

Very quick uneventful flight to Chicago. We circled around and landed on the east runway and we had a really good view of the city from the air. Its funny but looking at the city from high up like that made me think of the snow globe I bought when I was there back in January. When we landed the captain came on and had another cute little message “if you are connection on with American, have a great flight and if you are connecting with any other airline, quite frankly we don’t care.” Nice.

I had to haul to make it to my next gate (obviously in a different terminal). So im running through Ohare and talking to jon on the phone. Right when I run up to the gate this golf cart blows its horn and nearly runs me over. I’m like “whatever, you’re in my way since im not the one who is too lazy to walk myself to where I need to be” and there is this chick sitting there just glaring at me. i was thinking “don’t be looking at me like im the one with the problem.” And then I did a double take. The chick, was still giving me dirty looks as she got out of the golf cart and picked up about 3 shopping bags. Then I realized that the chick was Nicole Richie. And then I was really not in the mood for any more dirty looks (which I got as she pranced past me in her hideous designer clothes.” I so badly wanted to tell her that regardless of what she thought, she wasn’t anything special. But I didn’t. not really worth my time to even acknowledge that I knew who she was. By the way, you know how she isn’t very attractive in all the pictures you see of her? She’s even less attractive in person.

I was one of the last to board the plane and I happened to be seated very close to the back. In my row was a guy and a girl. At first I thought they were together but when the guy got off the phone the girl asked if she could make a call to California to talk to whoever was picking her up there.

Once she got off the phone the three of use ended up talking for at least and hour and a half. She was coming back from doing volunteer work in Senegal. It was interesting to hear what her experience was like. The guy was on his way back from a business trip in Dayton of all places. He was working out of wright-pat. The girl was from san diego and the guy was a real life genuine “OC-er” although he didn’t look like he belonged on the oc itself. Still talking to them was good because it passed the time for me.

Once we landed in L.A. we parted ways and I never did learn either of their names. Oh well. I ended up pacing around LAX for about 3 hours to pass the time. I think I called a ton of people too just to make things go faster.

Just before the flight boarded I popped a few sleeping pills because I figured I was going to need them. They kicked in a bit faster than I expected them to because I could barely stay awake through the meal. I pretty much passed out right after they took the stuff away. I must have slept for a long time too because when I finally woke up the girl who was sitting in the same row as me handed me a bag of snacks and water that they had been around passing out and didn’t want to wake me for. That was pretty nice of her.
I know this sounds bad, but I tried to spend as much of the 14.5 hour flight sleeping as possible. I think I succeeded well in that too.

Once they came around serving breakfast I couldn’t sleep anymore. Of course, it might just have been the breakfast too since it was kinda suspect. I think there might have been some eggs involved in what I was eating…

Overall the flight was pretty lowkey. Customs and immigration was ridiculous though. I really didn’t expect the lines to be that crazy on a Monday morning but they were. And here is where I also have to mention that I fell in love with my first aussie guy too. Oddly enough, he was the immigration officer who processed me. he was gorgeous. I mean gorgeous gorgeous. And hello aussie accent. I think the only issue we might have had to overcome was his inability to pronounce my last name. I had to say it for him twice before he could get it right. Too bad I actually had to leave the airport. Lol. At least I made the customs guy laugh too when I went through he asked if I had any food with me and I said no and then he asked if I was sure I didn’t have any plants animals food or anything of the sort and I told him “not unless you count cheese nips and oreos.” And he let me go straight on through. How nice of him.

Once I actually got out into the airport the first thing I had to do was go brush my teeth. I swear I only ever want to fly on Qantas from now on. It is far and away the best airline I have ever flown. They even give you these really cool little personal care kits before the flight even starts complete with a toothbrush and toothpaste which I used right away. I felt so grubby. Matter of fact I still haven’t had a shower since Saturday morning and I feel incredibly disgusting at the moment. I might even smell at this point. Not really sure. I think if I do im immune to it. Thus far, no one has complained however.

I thought several times on the shuttle to the hotel that I was going to get killed and not even make it to my destination. The driver was a maniac. Thankfully I was the third one let off so I made it out alive. I couldn’t check into the hotel until two so I filled out my paper work and got a map from reception. She drew out a path for me to follow an di figured she would know as good as any. I called mom and dad too to let them know I was there alright. Oh yeah and I had an alterior motive. I wanted to know the score of the bengals game. How sad is that? I am on the other side of the world and im trying to get football scores. Sad sad world.

So I followed the lady’s recommendation for the most part. I took a little detour through Chinatown before heading over to darling harbour. Darling harbour was pretty cool. There is a ton to see and do there. I went into the Chinese garden of friendship and took an excessive amount of pictures because I it was so pretty in there. I loved the lotus pond.

After that I walked through the park down to harbourside which was basically a mall and had a throwback to my European sandwiches that I loved so much. Spicy chicken on multigrain bread with butter and “salad.” I was just a tad bit surprised when red beets showed up on my sandwich though. I think the aussies have a thing for red beets because they were served for dinner on the flight over too. Actually a lot more stuff ended up on my sandwich than I thought was going to be there but it was still really good anyway. I got take away and went out and sat on a bench by the harbour and listened to this high school jazz band playing music while I ate. I loved it. And I loved the smell of the sea air too. I was surprised at the number of school kids running all over the place though. They must be able to leave their schools for lunch because the place was packed with them this one girl even came up and asked me if I would go buy her cigarettes because she wasn’t old enough yet.

After wandering around darling harbour for quite some time, I took a ferry around to circular quay. It as on the ferry that I got my first view of the typical images of Sydney. The first was the harbour bridge and then sneaking out from under the harbour bridge was the opera house. It all looks just like every thing you see about it. Once again I took an excessive amount of photos of it but hey, who wouldn’t?

I spent quite some time wandering around the rocks district shopping (yes I did buy stuff already) and booking my bridge climb for tomorrow night and then I wandered down to the opera house. You couldn’t get near it because apparently they were filming “Australian idol” on the steps of it. Why couldn’t they block it off with bon jovi or someone at least interesting rather than some cheese burnt out reality show?

Basically just walked around the opera house and then decided that it couldn’t be too long of a walk back to the hotel so decided to shoot for it. Well it took a bit longer than expected and well, my feet hurt a litte more than I would hope for but whatever. It was a really nice walk. I walked all the way through the royal botanical gardens and then through hyde park (seriously ANOTHER hyde park?) and then back to check in at the hotel. I got up to my room which is pretty nice. Fridge, microwave and other stuff. Not too bad. I didn’t have a roommate though at that point. Don’t know if or when I will. I was all excited because the first thing I was going to do was put the 113 (yea… I know) pictures I took today on my computer and then on the internet. Well I hooked up the internet cable to my computer and then went to plug it into the wall… and it didn’t work. It wasn’t the right size/shape for the plug in the wall. I don’t know what the problem is but im sitting at kinkos right now because they have wireless internet service. I have to pay for it but oh well. I feel too lonely and disconnected without it so it is the price I have to pay and trust me, I tried to steal other wireless internet connections that I could find but they were all secure. I had access to three of them at the hotel but all required passwords. Im wondering if I go sit outside the park regency tomorrow if I might be able to pick something up… man im desperate. I just hope this is the only hang up for that that I have. I want to be able to use the internet as I planned from my hotels so I could put up pictures too since that takes a while. Either way I will continue to type up entries on my computer and save them for when I have a chance to access the internet and post them. Don’t get concerned that I might miss a day or two of posting. They will hopefully show up as soon as possible.

So once I finish this off I have to go find something to eat and then get a shower to was off the offending smell. Not entirely sure what ill be up to tomorrow I think I might take a harbour cruise in the morning and maybe try to get out to bondi beach or something, not sure. I do know that I will be doing the bridge climb tomorrow night since I have already booked it. Im really excited for that. Should be lots of fun. And a really cool photo to boot. Here’s hoping too that the weather gets a bit better. It was cloudy and overcast for most the day. It hard to dress right too because in certain places it is cool and certain places it is hot. But im not going to complain. Its pretty amusing to see Christmas trees and wreaths and banners all over the place when people are running around in shorts and t-shirts. And speaking of Christmas trees… im going to see the lighting of the tree at darling harbour on Wednesday night (providing everything goes ok) and maybe ill have a christmas tree waiting to be decorated when I get home…and while im thinking of it, I forgot to see the tapes for lost so if someone could do that for me id appreciate it.

Cheers yall. Miss ya and love ya!!!!!