The Beginning...

Well, here we go – the beginning of my little story… I hope you all find it interesting – I’ll try to keep it fun!

So, I left Medford on Tuesday 8/31 in the afternoon. This is significant because of what I’ll tell you later (hee hee). I flew to SF whose airport I really appreciate since they have good food & coffee options there – At this point I’m still comfortable, excited, friendly. I arrive at the LA airport around dinner time – but see, I so wisely bought my dinner at SF so I wasn’t at all concerned about finding food in LA + they had a Starbucks right near my gate. What else could a good traveler need?

But… in the LA airport, apparently, they’ve added this Musac music piped in overhead – EVERYWHERE and you cannot get away from it. I even asked an airport worker if there was anywhere that the music was NOT & he looked at me oddly. I said do you get annoyed by it at all? I think he thought I was off my rocker. He just smiled politely & walked away. After a while you do get used to the Disney tunes via verrrry sloooow piano & old big band music Musac style. At least it doesn’t interrupt your reading.

So since I was about 3-4 hours before my Australia flight I spread myself out across a few seats, made a pillow out of my sweater & bag & settled in reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Every now & then I would notice the Little Mermaid theme or a verrry slooo Chuck Berry tune. Not too bad.

Now, mind you, the waiting area (huge) is practically empty at this time.

Well, after a while I’m sort of reading dozing / zoning and this little family – a dad & two kids – has settled in near me but it’s ok cause they’re interesting to watch + & importantly, they’re quiet. But shortly I’m semi awakened from my zone out by a woman being wheeled over TO MY SPOT by airport personnel! Now, I’m laying there on my little sweater / bag pillow & she lays down with HER HEAD right next to MINE! on the adjoining seat! I could not believe my eyes! So I sat up & adjusted my position in a very annoyed manner, sighing deeply & loudly & glanced at the little family to see if they were commiserating with me (they weren’t) & I sighed a few more times but got no sympathy from either the family or the woman!

Then slowly but surely this waiting area filled & filled to overflowing, with people of all nationalities, dress, colors & creeds. I’m not in Medford anymore, Toto. Had I been thinking (& not zoning) I would have taken pictures of this over time so you could see the dramatic change on an ordinary Tuesday evening R LAX – but then again, maybe you’re glad I didn’t! but by the time it was close to boarding time it was packed, no seats available, crying babies, running toddlers, exasperated adults, many many different languages, and Australians galore!

Finally we’re boarding this gigantic monster plane that has an UPSTAIRS area! I had preselected my seat to be on the aisle (since I could not bear the thought of having to disturb someone to get out of my set in order to go pee!). this plane had 3 seats on each window isle & I think 7-8 seats in the middle. So 2 aisles. Huge! I think they said there were 18 flight attendants. Definitely not a plane that would land in Medford international! In the window seat in my row was a nice young man of maybe east Indian nationality from someplace like Michigan. The middle seat remained empty! Yeah!! We were very happy. In fact, at one point they were closing up all the overhead bins & acting like we were leaving & this woman in front of me & I both moved to empty rows feeling very very happy that we were going to get a row alone. My row mate guy was, of course happy too. But, unfortunately, at the very last minute before we pulled away from the gate this huge family – I mean, I think there were 5-6 kids – they arrived & took up our free seats. Darn!! But at least me & nice Indian guy had a free seat between us.

The flight was not too bad – mind you, it was leaving at 10:30 Tuesday night. I kind of dreaded it since I don’t do too well without sleep. But I’d come prepared with Benadryl & Dramamine to take if I needed it, I had my noise canceling earphones & music + I had the IPod from Siri with music & books on it. I also had an eye mask. And I brought my earplugs just in case. I’d grabbed a blanket & pillow, & I had my neck pillow. The only thing that would have made anything better was if that row had been available. Or I guess if Australia was about 10 hours closer!

Anyway, I actually slept pretty well – I took a Dramamine just in case & maybe that helped but it didn’t make me weird – I didn’t really feel anything from it. But looking back it probably made me able to fall back asleep when little noises or bumps (not the plane – the people or the food carts would bump into me sometimes… they played tv & movies but I didn’t watch them. But between shows they’d display where we were, time to destination etc. I remember wishing I could stretch out sometimes but overall it was not too bad. Then I woke up once & peeked from under my mask & saw we only had 4+ hours left to go! I was so happy! I felt like I’d made it through the longest stretch (the whole flight time was 14 or 17 hours – something like that). I felt like the rest would go quickly.

Oh and by the way – they feed you on these international flights, come to find out. They feed a meal soon after take off, then a ‘snack’ some hours later, then a meal a couple of hours before landing. That meal was breakfast in my case.

When I woke I got up and stood in the back of the plane for a time, drank a bunch of water, peed, stretched. I really felt pretty good. Actually I drank a lot of water whenever I got up. Oh,, yeah, and I had my Ted hose on! Thanks to Kathy bugging me! the rest of the flight was uneventful – this was the time I used the IPod – thank you so much Siri. It had nice music that I didn’t know but found very soothing. And it went to books & I fell asleep again! So I kind of dozed & woke & got up & stretched & drank water for the rest of the time.

We landed in Sydney at 6 something am on Thursday 9/2. So I don’t know how to explain the time difference but whatever time it is for you right now (on the west coast) subtract 7 & it’s that time the next day here… get it? So if it’s 10 am for you on Tuesday, it’s 3 am on Wednesday here! East coasters, Chicago – you’re on your own!

We got back onto the plane & finished our flight to Melbourne arriving about 9:30 am Thursday. I got my bags & went through customs no sweat. It didn’t take long at all. I found my ‘Skybus’ to the city, no problem. The airport is about 30 minutes out. On the drive to the city I was trying to see what’s different about AU from us – actually it’s very similar. Except they drive on the other side of the road. And I couldn’t see much of the city & didn’t really know what I was looking at on the bus ride. It takes you to a central bus, train, tram station where I got a shuttle bus to the hotel. I rode that with a group of Asian student types who spoke their own language + very accented English but when I asked them where they’re from they said ‘Sydney’!