Day 1: Flying Forever and Ever

5pm EDT

There is something wrong with this picture:  Kyle’s carry on is bursting at the seams and weighs a metric ton while his actual checked luggage is half full and tips the scales at under ten pounds.  We’ve brought a lot with us to keep us occupied for the impending 20 hour flight.  Perhaps too much?

The trip out to JFK wasn’t eventful aside from a VERY full A train and a glut of confused tourists at the Airtrain station.  Terminal 7 is nice but small as seems to be the case at JFK.  Terminal 7 is one of the original 9 but has been recently renovated so it looks new and gleaming.  We’re really digging the retro collection of chairs they have accumulated in the airside waiting areas! They also paged someone named Christian Buns over the loudspeaker which is a great name.

Somewhere over Wichita

Man, 747s are big!  It really hit me when I was on the jetway looking at the size of the engines and the wing.  It’s no C-5 Galaxy but it’s certainly big!  The flight to Los Angeles went well.  We ended up sitting next to the same guy who deeply offended Kirsten at the McDonalds in Terminal 7 at JFK for not bussing his table (“Aussie culture” sez my Australian expert friend, Spuhler), pretty small world, right?  Anyway, we found that pretty funny and he was polite enough on the flight.  In fact I think we were probably annoying him watching the Australian television shows that are shown on demand in the Qantas seatback screens.  Everybody should check out Thank God You’re Here if you happen to be a Whose Line Is It Anyway fan.  I was laughing so hard that I was crying at times.

The meal was decent and there was plenty to eat.  Kirsten had the beef thing and I had the spinach cannelloni thing.  We also had a Greek salad, cheese and crackers, and carrot cake.  I also had some wine with my meal.  I also went back for a beer on my bathroom break (yes, first time using a bathroom in a plane!  They’re so small and efficient!).  They gave me a choice between a few Australian beers and a Heineken.  I tried something called James Squire which was good but made me gassy.  I won’t get it again on a flight.  Burping loudly is fun and all but the tail end of a 747 is no place for things that are that fun.

10:30 PDT

So this is also my first time in California as I’m writing from our layover in LAX.  The landing was pretty cool as the lights of LA go on forever until they hit the mountains which are dark except for the wildfires that are blazing in areas.  They’re really bright!  We were quite surprised how big and bright they were.

The terminal here is so bland.  I used to think that Atlanta was a bland airport but LAX is blander.  It’s Blandy McBlanderson Blanding his Blander with a Blandifier if you get my drift.

Somewhere over the Pacific

Alright, this is the longest night ever.  We took off from Los Angeles hours ago and I’ve even been sleeping for some time and it’s still pitch black out.  Looking out the window I can see nothing but blackness and I’m reminded of Stephen King’s short story The Langoliers where somehow an airliner flies through a hole in the time continuum and find out what happens to the past.  Without giving away too many details, at the end of the story the plane is just flying through black nothingness.

But it isn’t quite nothing, as I stare out the window the stars start to come into focus and I can immediately pick out the southern cross.  It’s much smaller than I figured it would be but it still reminded me of that Crosby Stills and Nash (and Young?) song.

Earlier we were served dinner number two.  We had a choice of chicken or fish (Leslie Nielson had the lasagna).  I went with the salmon which was served in a japanese sort of way with soy sauce, rice, and scrambled eggs – yeah I don’t know either.  Afterwards I sipped on a glass of very heavy shiraz while I watched an Australian mockumentary called Kenny about the port-a-john industry.  I made it all the way through before nodding off which brings us to now.  And I’m going back to sleep.

Later

The sun finally caught up to us again at 4:00am Melbourne time and they began serving breakfast.  Spinach quiche with ham, sausage, and tator tots, a mystery muffin that was quite good but we couldn’t figure out the flavor, and multiple mugs of tea and coffee.