and a long day

Saturday 25th part 2

This is being written in a Ruby's Diner in LA airport. I have a bit over 2 1/2 hours till my flight leaves. There is an earlier flight leaving in 25 minutes but I was not able to get on it at check in, despite deliberately carrying my bags across from International, just in case. Once I'd got inside the terminal, the girl at the gate counter said I could wait list but my bags wouldn't get on the same flight. Last year, I was in a similar situation and when I arrived in Houston, I found my bags were already there.

The flight from Melbourne was long. It left a bit late but they caught up and we arrived more or less on time. It was still nearly 14 hours, leaving at 11 am and arriving at 7am the same day. Dr Who eat your heart out, Qantas can time travel too. Because you leave and arrive in the morning it really stuffs up your body clock. I watched 2 filmes and had lunch before trying to sleep. The films were Slumdog Millionaire and Transporter 3. After my sleep I watched The Curious case of Benjamin Button. I slept from about 3 pm to 7pm Melbourne time. This equated to 10pm to 4am LA time. So That's about 7 hours total sleep since I left home 24 hours ago.

I was upstairs again, which I prefer. It seems a bit more intimate and friendly. Also you are always in pairs. Downstairs even the business class seats are 3 wide in the centre section. It was a 747, so the seats were those capsule types that are standard on Qantas Business Class. They haven't upgraded to the diagonal seating that is used by Cathay and British airways and the new A380 isn't used on this route. Still you can lie stright, if not actually horizontal and get a more comfortable sleep than on the 330 such as on Thai or the flight from Perth.

Once again we got a pair of PJs and the usual tooth paste, socks and skincare pack. I took the skin care and tooth brush but left the rest. I have more than enough of those travel packs and didn't really need the extra stuff to squeeze into my bag. The meal was good, some tarragon chicken for entrée, rack of lamb for main and Ice cream for dessert. I also had some lindt chocolate and hot chocolate drink in the middle of the night once I'd given up sleeping.

Being in Business we were off the plane first and got through passport control with little queuing. Despite registering on line, we were advised by the staff to fill in the visa application anyway, since the on line system isn't always working properly. In fact it was the paper application that was processed. I suspect on the next trip the on line system will be up and running. My bags were off early and even my golf sticks arrived quite promptly.

It was only 11 degrees here so I kept my PJ top on but put the pants and my 200ml whisky bottle into my main case. That can be a bit of a trap. You can't take your duty free onto the domestic flight because its over 100ml, so if you don't repack, you lose it. I got a trolley and took my case and clubs across to the domestic terminal, as I said hoping to get the earlier flight. A young guy helped me check in but said the early flight was overbooked. He did carry my golf clubs over to the X-ray machine for me. I could have just put them on the conveyor belt at international, as it turned out.

The security here is still strict. I had to show my passport before going through security in the domestic terminal and you have to take of your shoes and put them through the x ray as well. However I didn't get the special search that happened last time so I was through reasonably quickly.

A first class ticket doesn't get you into the airport lounge here. You need to join the club or have a platinum Amex card. Hence my sitting in the diner. This has killed 30 minutes - only 2 hours to go.

While I was wandering around the terminal I noticed this vending machine that sells Ipod accessories. None of this bag of chips, chocolate or can of drink rubbish here.