To begin posts on this blog, I will include backdated emails I sent to family and friends from the beginning of my overseas trip to the USA. This is the first of four.
Where do I start? The past 24 hours has got to be one of the most interesting I've ever had. Well, I got away on time from BNE to LAX, emergency exit window seat all the way ;) and by the time I had gone through the little gadget packets you get with international flights, rubbed my eyes and scratched my butt and lunch was being served. I was curious, lunch seemed more like dinner, and dinner was absent from the schedule brochure; ice cream followed lunch. I found out why, since we were racing away from the sun at just over 1000kmph, in a surprisingly quick time it was getting dusk. We kept flying over all these Pacific islands, dozens of them appearing between the clouds, and L-shaped reef breaks in open ocean, was pretty cool.Then before the sunset we flew across one huge island, which turned out to be Fiji. I took an awesome shot out the window looking back at Fiji with the avo sun turning all the surrounding ocean to shimmering gold.
Dinner was nothin special, but I was starving and pumped everything that came my way. But when the ice cream came, it was like a mango flavoured coating over the ice cream, and when I peeled the wrapper away, there was mist pouring off the thing. Something was weird, coz there is almost no humidity in the cabin air. Turns out, it was showering ice particles which were 'exploding' off the surface, you could see it when you looked closely. I touched my tongue to the end of it, and instantly it stuck to it. I was like wow, thats cold, and kept sticking my tongue on it and peeling it off, as you do. Of course, soon I accidentally stuck my lip to it. I slowly peeled it off, leaving behind a layer of lip then I tasted blood. I tried to hide it by biting on my napkin, and was initially kinda worried at how much there was. But mouth injuries heal quick and was all good, although a bit tender, 3 minutes later. Turns out, when I asked old mate Graham (the steward serving my section), the ice creams had been packed in with dry ice at something like 40 below and they took about 10 minutes to thaw to eating temperature and about 60 other people had caused their lips to bleed as well, and he was going to report it.
Yeah so other things of note was the entertainment system crashed about 4 times during the flight and each time takes about 15mins to reboot. I was watching Man Of The Year (Robin Williams is hilarious and awesome) and it crashed, so me and Vern (my half-bald, moustached, big-shiny-belt-buckled Texan seat neighbour) and Vern's lady (a Bris woman can't remember her name but she was cool) hassled the stewards for some alcohol. Had a couple of quick Jim Beams on the same can of coke (the last beam the guy poured he filled the cup over 3/4), and before long we were story telling. Didn't get much sleep, only trailed off for maybe an hour or two, and we had minor turbulence pretty much most of the night.
Morning came and then through the haze below I spotted the first land, Santa Catalina Island off the coast, and then LA appeared! Pretty cool sight, flew over the harbour, a cruise ship was docked, the motorways go off into the distance beyond sight with cars feeding into massive motorway junctions. Landed and had to keep myself from laughing at some LA african-americans manning the ground equipment, dressed so typically in pants so baggy they walked toward the aircraft having to hold them up with one hand near the crotch and a distinct limping swagger. I went through about 5 officials, all of them more typical LA blacks I love the way they talk, to get thru immigration and customs and to connecting flights. There was a hispanic female officer and an asian male officer having a loud argument over something to do with the queues which was also amusing.
So Frontier airlines is cool, and I think generally, US domestic air travel is much better than Oz, even Virgin Blue whom I thought highly of. I had a Frontier stewardess sitting next to me on an off-duty flight, her name was Stacey, and made friends with her over the flight, taking my grand total of US friends to about four :) Flew over the Grand Canyon, at least I was pretty sure I was looking at the canyon, it was a huge area of canyons, dunno if Grand was on my side of the plane or not. Then later on, on approach to Denver, we came upon thick cloud, and hit some decent turbulence, not totally gut wrenching but a few of those good dropping feelings. Then we came below the clouds and I saw snow dusted over all the ground, about 95% cover, all the way to the horizon. That was amazing never seen so much snow. There was a chill on the wind when we got off, but I was in the airport terminal mostly until the next flight. Had a mad lunch at the airport, Ted the Chef's bistro/bar, and sat around a bar with a bunch of other strangers in a cozy atmosphere. Awesome service, and i gave my first tip of 20% (I asked advice first) to them, and chatted to an american meteorologist seated next to me, told him about good ol BOM.
Yes so, arriving at OK, met up with Amy the lovely cheerful blonde staff assistant, with an 'Okie' accent. Driving back in the company car down the motorway, I saw 10 times as many dual cab utes, huge SUVs and trucks as I've ever seen in my life. Every 6th car I would say, is a big gas guzzling truck utility, big Fords, Chevrolets, Dodges, many with paired wheels at the back, stretched, and they accelerate with a big gutsy rumble, and you can almost see the fuel come out the 3" exhaust. I've been told that Texas is worst for this trend, and Oklahoma is like a mini-texas. All young guys buy trucks, do them up, repair them, restore them, raise them, and just make them loud, only some have any concern for outward appearance. It's amazing, like coast guys are into jap cars, speed and drifting, here its all about the size of your truck and the noise it makes.
So I'm at my hotel, the Quality Inn, its not too bad, it's chilly outside, probably will get down to single digits celcius or low tens tonight, and a brisk westerly breeze about 18knots is blowing. There are American flags sticking up here there over the countryside, and the horizon is flat, 360 degrees. Quite a sight, seeing in the middle of nothing off the side of the motorway, a huge American flag the size of a small house flying about 8 stories in the air. The grass is like, almost monotone, barely any green its more brown/white, trees have no leaves, it's only just emerging from winter here. A tornado hit a school yesterday in, um, Grenada I think, killed 5 kids, and Amy told me as we drove through an intersection about how all the surrounding strip of buildings got wiped out in a tornado in the nineties. I forgot to mention, it was so cool to see little venice-beach style palms dotted all over LA everywhere you looked. I'm running low on sleep, got this hotel wireless thing happening, and it's 12:35pm AEST, and I'm going to bed.
Will have another update soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment