We had to get up quite early to get to the airport for our 10:30am flight. I put a call into my mom back in the states to try and burn up my prepaid phone credit. I also made two attempts to get upgrades on the Sydney to LAX leg of our journey. This of course did not happen. I even tried using the “you put us on American which is so much worse than Qantas bit.”
Our first flight was uneventful. In Sydney you have to show your ticket, go to a waiting room, catch a bus, just to get to the international terminal. We had 30 min from getting off our first plane till boarding started on the next flight. The buses come every few minutes and the first bus filled up with out us. 10 minutes till boarding. We got to the international terminal and had to go through both customs and immigration. The customs officer did not care that we should be boarding while we were in line. At this point I was hoping the plane would leave without us. I figured we would have some nice leverage for an upgrade on the next flight. We made it to the terminal proper. They have a huge sprawling duty free shop that we had to run through. I had been debating buying two liters of Johhny Walker Black Label. Why would I buy that? It came with a free wheelie carry on bag, it looked pretty nice. I did not get a chance to look at it closely. I also could not find a home for the two bottles of alcohol I did not want.
We finally made it to the plane. There were three loading doors. Why do you ask? AIRBUS A380!!!!!! First was on the first level with a dedicated loading door. Business and premium economy was on the second level, with the cockpit. We loaded to the first floor, in economy.
I never want to fly another airplane ever. The seats are carbon fiber backed along with the tray tables, save weight, save fuel. The tv screens are touch screen and there is more entertainment available. After reviewing the information on First, Business, and Premium economy, I checked out what I had access to. After finding out about a usb port for charging in the arm rest, an ethernet port, and a power plug I started writing Day 19, 20 and 21. I also made a trip to the self service bar for a coupled of apples. I love Qantas, too bad leg 3 is on American Airlines Boeing 767. I also managed to watch Alice in Wonderland, A Beautiful Mind great movie after taking game theory to know his contributions to the world), all the Simpsons episodes available, including one of my favorites of all time, That 90s Show.
I later read in popular mechanics that Qantas, it has 6 of the 27 in the air, ripped out the stock 1st class setup and put in a cheaper one. Keeping in mind that the first seats fold flat and have a table where you and a guest can enjoy your meals. I would like to fly on the Boeing dreamliner should it ever actually fly.
By the time we got off the plane in LAX I had logged all of 20 minuets of sleep. Ina had closer to 90 minuets . We had a little more time to go through the airport this time. We had the world’s stupidest flight attendant. Early in the flight the attendants had come through to distribute immigration and customs cards. When we said we were American the flight attendant said we were set and didn’t need any forms. When we got in the immigration line Ina and I started to question what was going on. We asked the woman in front of us and she said the attendants were stupid and we needed the form. Even better while filling out the form my pen exploded and even after washing off my hand I still had a suspicious amount of black ink. While this delayed us a little we still had to wait for our bags on the carousel to go through customs. First and business had their own carousel. We made our way next door to the terminal we would be departing from.
We had to go through security again, no shoes this time. In Australia I forgot to take off my watch and realizing right before I stepped through they told me don’t worry about it. Boy do I love outside of US security. I must also mention that on international flights groups of people are not allowed to gather and talk to each other on flights especially near bathrooms. Odd when you realize you can chat with any seat on the plane with the text messaging service.
I had been craving a sandwich for about 12 hours and so Ina and I went into the airport Chili’s. As our departure time neared Ina and I finally looked at our tickets, 24H and 29G. We had both only seen 2_G and 2_H and assumed we were together. At the gate attendant, who tried to shuffle seats as people boarded, suggestion we were going to try to swap seats. We had two aisle seats too. Ina quickly swapped one row back so a couple could sit next to each other. I joined the window seat, 767’s go 2-3-2, and to our joy no body came for the seat. Unlike the Qantas flights there were no individual entertainment centers, but it did not really matter. Ina and I both got about 2 hours of sleep. I finished my book, The Death of Marco Pantani, and moved onto a magazine. I would suggest the book to anyone at all interested by the title.
We had boarded the flight late and so the only room for my carry on was about 10 rows behind us. This meant that before we could get off the plane we had to allow everybody off. We took another detour to the bathrooms and I even changed my shirt before we went to the baggage claim, we still had to wait about 20 minuets for all our bags to come around. This was what I was used to, not getting in about an hour early which we also did.
The day was not over yet, much to Ina and My dismay. We made it home safe and Ina’s mom heated up two plates of dumplings for me. We, Ina and I, both figured since we had each only about 3 hours of sleep in the last 27 we should fall right asleep. Wrong! Ina fell asleep around 5am and I got two hours between 2 and 4am. It is our opinion that arriving in the morning is the way to go, maybe next time. It was also fun to land in LA at the same time as we took off from Melbourne. We only lost about 8 hours on the flight back. We spent the next day sleeping from about 10am until 7pm. Intense jetlag is a small price to pay for 3 weeks of fun in the land of Oz.
