Awkward Dinosaur in America!

Day 1.5- (The day of flight, visiting the past and getting up to do more stuff after sleeping.)

So, my trip started off well.

 Got bags, got stuff, got me. Seems sorted. Get to airport on time? Success.

Get to check in desk. Success.

Submit passport in exchange for boarding pass? Fail. 

A company, who I shall not name because I am beneath such things, managed to mis-read my name on my flight booking and hence printed the wrong name on my ticket. This, of course, sent staff into perplexed mumbling and me into a mild panic, complete with small whimpers. 

After being advised to call the Company that Shall Not Be Named, I was even more frustrated.

They basically told me that ‘According to company policy, Expedia (oops, sorry, did I just name-drop? Where’s that delete key? Can’t seem to find it. Odd.) could not re-print my ticket, change my name or be, in any practical way, helpful. They advised calling the airline.

Which I did. 

 *Ring ring*

“I’m sorry, but our offices aren’t open until many hours from now. Please have fun sorting out your problem on your own.”

Frazzled, I returned to the loving care of the helpful staff of Air New Zealand. Within ten minutes, I got a boarding pass to Sydney with the help of a sneaky system wrangling plane-person by the name of Jeff. Success! 

On plane to Sydney, one step closer to the end goal. Now to sort out my boarding pass at the other end!

While waiting in Sydney for airline staff to man the boarding gate, I met Kim the Other Friendly Aucklander. Thanks to her witty conversation, I survived the next few harrowing hours (five, to be precise) with my own wits relatively intact. And my ticket was sorted out.

During our conversation, however, we noticed some interesting happenings. Americans!

The first American I heard was, surprisingly enough, in the airport. And what were the first gracious words out of this charmingly sweet woman’s mouth? I was curious to hear them… It would do a lot for my forming judgements on the species.

Her first words were: “If other people fed their children, they wouldn’t cry so much. Obviously they need to take a parenting course. “

 Now, it’s not that I’m against this statement in principal. It’s mostly that it came from a woman who had no idea when these people had last fed their children- it could have been five minutes ago!

Luckily, I was distracted form this as Even More Americans piled into the space around Gate 60. Where before there had been understated, functional and open plan foyers for checking in, manned by a team of quiet, uniformed flight assistants, now there were loud Americans in suits, striding around like they meant business. They were taking over boarding gate 60, a coup complete with intimidating body searches and uniform blue screens. 

After all of that, boarding the plane was rather uneventful. The first thing that tickled my fancy was how American everything was. I mean, you expect it, I suppose, but it’s a different thing to experience. We were watching baseball on the inflight video.  Baseball.

Then there were the accents of the pilots and flight crew. ‘Would yew lahke somethin’ tuh drank?’

The American madness continues as the pilot reads out our in-flight instructions. Gems, every one of them. 

My favourite was ‘No social mingling in the gallies and lavatories.’

I mean, really... Who’s going to hang out in a lavatory?!

I also liked the statement that:

‘TSA have secure rules and restrictions for the safety of our passengers.'
One of these is that passengers are restricted to using the lavatories that are assigned to their particular
section of the plane!

Anyway, I'm writing this bit a few hours into the L.A leg of the trip, and my coccyx hurts. That’s right, you heard me. 

So, to take my mind off this, I spend time gazing out my window at clouds.  I’ve always found clouds absolutely fascinating. There’s something about being up in the sky, with just blue around you and the soft fluffy wool of clouds.

You feel like you’re part of something bigger, like you can see the whole world as it really is… It’s as if being 40,000ft? in the air somehow makes you invulnerable and better than what you were as a human being standing on two legs at 0ft above ground.

Just a note: It’s currently 10pm NZT and we’ve still got 8.5 hours to go. I haven’t moved from my seat since I sat down. I’m wondering if that’s going to hurt later, and if I can keep it up before we get to L.A.

This. Flight. Is. So. Long. 

Aaaand... I made it! Going through Security and Customs was a bit of a sleep deprived blur. No invasive cavity searches, no embarrassing and drawn out manual inspections of the contents of my suitcase. Just endless amounts of questions, some fingerprint scanning and a token 'Have a nice stay in America.'

Sorry to make this such a long post, but I did promise I'd keep you updated and so much has happened in the past 48 hours!

First really exciting thing was seeing Evan. It was kind of surreal- I had missed him so much, and suddenly I was with him, sitting in the car (admittedly, the steering wheel was on the wrong side and we were driving on the right hand side of the road,) and chatting about the flight and the trees and the crazy American drivers. 

The next really exciting thing that happened was being taken to Costco. Yup, it's huge. For you Kiwis, think Gilmores but bigger and with way more stuff, including furniture. 

My mind was stretching, and there were funny tingles sporadically travelling down my neck with each turn of my head to focus on one of the million other amazing sights set before me. 

It was so overwhelming, in fact, that I need to end this post. Right now. Hard...To... *brain spasm*