In which we go to 'Merica
I am writing this 24 hours post the actual events and on our designated rest day (hashtag well planned) otherwise you would be reading something incoherent and devoid of grammatical propriety. Even so, I feel somewhat daunted trying to make a day of travel sound remotely interesting for you, my dear readers. I think I shall have a nap in hopes of creativity flourishing.
Later....
I thought about having a nap and watched Netflix instead. It was Nanette so if any feminist ravings slip through, blame the comedic genius of Hannah Gadsby.
The summarised version of our trip over is:
we drive to airport in the pouring rain with an uber driver whose Russian accent caused conversational confusion over "we're arriving at 10 to" vs we're arriving at Terminal 2". I started whittling on that arriving at 10 to was perfect - it was slightly behind my schedule but given the deluge we were driving through it wasn't at all surprising that every ninny with a steering wheel was on the road and that I had allowed a transportation buffer for just such an unfortunate occurrence. 10 to was still within an allowable timeline and would only impact designated shopping time. The designated wine-in-the-lounge time would only be sacrificed as a last resort we were far from last resort. The driver then repeats that "we will arrive at 10 to" and I wonder which part of my explanation I should repeat. Ant sees the imminent signs of me about to re-explain The Schedule and rushes into speech. God only gave Ant a set number of words to use and he's very careful with them so the bold deployment at speed was probably a good indication that he didn't want to hear The Schedule again and he assured the driver that 10 to is fine. There is a brief pause and the driver again repeats that we will arrive at 10 to. This is somewhat flummoxing and there is dead silence in the car until we both realise that he is asking us if we're going to Terminal 2! After confirming this, we decide silence is possibly the best strategy from here to avoid any further confusion or renditions of The Schedule.
I can't really remember much about the rest except that the wine in the lounge was chilled and the one hour wait to take-off was annoying.
We stopped in Auckland and met family for dinner - there was a slight marital discord over luggage that we enlisted the referring services of a service person to resolve and then we were out to the Novotel restaurant for a crash course on relearning cat's cradle (courtesy Kyra!) and an Xmas present delivery service stop. I could expound on this interlude further but I'm well aware that only 5 people are likely to read this blog and most of the 5 were at dinner.
Both Melbourne and Auckland were a tropical humid hell so by the time we made it back into the lounge, I was a bedraggled, sweaty, frizzy mess. The shower at the airport was a god send so at least I started the flight to LA feeling human. The worst part of the flight was the 1 hour standing in the customs queue at the other end. Any upside to giant cushy seats, lounge access, inflight amenity kits and noise cancelling earphones went down the tubes on the Customs Line Ride. It was so depressing and I may have started ranting to Ant about how this was a perfect example of capitalism (an economic system) being different from democracy (a political system) and that making us stand in line was democratic treatment of humans and I really think that I would prefer capitalism in this instance and I amused myself by wondering out loud how much I would pay to avoid the line. I don't believe Ant was amused right then but thankfully Mum text with a video of Dad cutting down a tree with what looked suspiciously like a Gordon Special contraption: a chainsaw on the end of the weed whacker. The possibilities, dangers and anecdotes of Gordon Specials distracted us both for a further 15 minutes by which time we could vaguely see the front of the line. After a brief conversation about customs officials either needing to be the happiest people on the planet or to have had their souls removed in order to do their job, we miserably shuffled the remaining 15 minutes to the front of the queue in silence. Well except for me muttering to the person in front about the manifest unfairness of one of the Empty Souls allowing people behind us move to the front of another queue. Based on the angry stamping of passports, monosyllabic "conversation" I've concluded that Soul Removal must be a mandatory for US Customs and Border Patrol staff. The probably have a graduation ceremony where they hand over their soul in exchange for their little stamp. I felt really welcomed to America.
Charles "my friends call my Chip" the driver, met us and took pity on our sorry bedraggled selves and was all the friendly and welcome that the Soul Dead Stamping Man wasn't. An hour later, we were installed in our hotel room in Santa Monica.
The Schedule dictated that we were to go for a walk and have dinner and not be in bed before 9pm so Ant was hustled out the door and we walked down to Santa Monica pier. Cannabis is legal in California and sunset is at 4:46pm so our sunset walk to the pier was a waft through cannabis fumes. It is illegal to smoke in public apparently but I guess worrying about public consumption is not nearly as important to law enforcement as stopping people from getting into America.
My memories of the rest of the evening are somewhat hazy, not due to second hand consumption of the weed, but from sheer, hysterical tiredness. Thanks to the constant monitoring going on by Apple, and specifically Apple Watch, I now know I got 2 hours of sleep on the plane so that explains why I nearly ended up face first in my lobster roll over dinner. There is a slight chance the giant cocktail may have contributed.
Anyhoo, we pre-empted The Schedule slightly and we were in bed by 8pm conked out for the next 11 hours......
PS We were reliably informed that the Gordon Special was actually a legitimate machine without any Chisholm modifications.
Antoine’s Content Corner
Ant is going to provide a one sentence summary for each day.
Herewith is the summary of Day 1: After flying and sitting the same seat for 16 hours, waking up the next day is like having a hangover for the arse.
