Wednesday
Oct122005
Are We There Yet? 36 Hours of Travel Time
Wednesday, October 12, 2005 at 07:52AM
(Since you'll be seeing these whenever they get posted - I've dated them at the top as well so you'll know what days I'm writing about.)
Travel Time - Canada time - October 9 and 10.
After hanging at the bus depot with a bunch of Scots, a gripping edge of your seat bus ride (late due to the runners in the Royal Victoria Marathon) to the ferry, and checking in at the wrong counter - although I did check in four hours early - just in case - (it's that directional sense again), I have had my luggage unpacked and repacked by Canadian Customs and I have now decided to get tanked in the airport bar while trying to get used to this keyboard and waiting out my 2 more hours until I can board the flight to LA.
On the bus I was trapped between a (and it truly does pain me to say this) a stereotypical arrogant Aussie boy and a kiwi with the best buns I have ever seen in my life. So, you know, there was that questioning of my choice of destination for a little while as the Aussie managed to swear his innately UNcharming way through an hour on the bus with a bunch of pensioners and OVER the music cranked in my ears while the Kiwi was nice and quiet and smiled at me a lot.
I want to take a picture of the 8 foot tall stuffed moose but I'm not that 'lassiez-faire' yet about the travelling alone thing and yanno, it's a little embrarrassing.
(I know, Sal is grinding his teeth right about now - "Take the damn picture!")
Anyways, novel #1 needs to be out of my 800 pound bag before I land in LA so I am off to read and shall check in with you later.
----later-----
The bar is now filled with people in porkpie hats, ruffled blouses and leopard cowboy hats - and that's just the men. I'm up at the bar for another drink and one of them indicates there's about 30 of them on theway to a work function. The women are in old time prom-type dresses and whooping away.
I think I want to work where they do.
The gentleman beside me asks for a sandwich and the bartender, Diane, asks him if he'd like a bag of chips with that, "Chock full of fibre and vitamin A." she says. He goes for it, even though he's SO not at an age where he requires any kind of fibre in his diet. She's good.
I'm sitting close enough to hear her (and o my god, a guy in an afro wig that must weigh more than his whole body - I could just spend the next month HERE, blogging, I swear) ... and she is the Queen of the Upsell. And enjoying it.
Me and my short short hair are no longer the novelty here and sometimes I am thankful for that.
I remember when Vanessa left a few months ago and she posted about the 'unclenching' of your entire being when you go away. Not when you go 'on vacation' but when you actually GO AWAY. And she is right - it's a feeling so hard to describe and yet so immediately recognizable that you couldn't mistake it for anything else.
Even though I wouldn't classify this trip as 'vacation' or as 'travelilng' but in some gray area in between that we can only label "a little more" - here, in a hotel bar, 3 hours from home, I am ...unclenching.
And, suddenly, I notice a grandchild of a daughter of a son of a fruit fly family I SWEAR I left behind this morning in the breeding of my house - must go killlllllll.
---later---
I left the bar and hit one of those face-down-in-a-chair massages for 25 minutes. Nice. For the first time since I got my forearm tattoo someone actually spoke it in it's own language to me. In Chinese AND Cantonese. And that was ultra cool.
And then back on the plane.
Another country. Another bar. Another airport. And another fruit fly on my glass. Seriously. In all those travel books you read where they tell you to take pictures or sightsee according to a theme - something as big as churches or as little as doors - I think my theme has been chosen FOR me.
This is the trip of the fruit fly. The fruit fly on my wine.
I may as well just go home now.
Anyways - LA is HOT. Someone needs to turn down the heat. Actually - it's humid. haha. But I is all sweaty and I do not like that.
After realizing I needed to be in a different terminal (no one mentioned that to me) I talked to a couple of nice parking men who got me onto the bus to the right terminal and now I have about 45 minutes before I board the almost final leg of the trip - 16 hours and 50 minutes to Melbourne (but I have a change of equipment in Sydney.)
I slept a little on the way down here but will probably have a drink and a gravol on the plane in a couple hours - which reminds me, must fill up water bottle for this flight.
... one final note touristy note:
I flew in here in the dark - I've been here before but not at night - and LA is HUGE. And LAX is utter madness. And there's a scarcity of people to ask for help.
But you know you're in the US when you're walking down through the terminal and you here that accent and someone gets up close to you and accents right in your ear... "Yeeew is fiiiiiiiine."
*snort* And it didn't even startle me because I was helping a confused looking woman with her luggage.
I am so Canadian.
---later, still-----
It is 2 am and I'm almost positive that I packed my gravol in my checked luggage. Which means I will not be sleeping. But which also means that I am eyelid droopy tired and unable to sleep.
My seat 'mate' has just turned his light out. He's grumpy looking. And I've gone to the bathroom twice in 3 hours so I don't think he likes me.
Good thing I forgot to fill the water bottle.
Travel Time - Canada time - October 9 and 10.
After hanging at the bus depot with a bunch of Scots, a gripping edge of your seat bus ride (late due to the runners in the Royal Victoria Marathon) to the ferry, and checking in at the wrong counter - although I did check in four hours early - just in case - (it's that directional sense again), I have had my luggage unpacked and repacked by Canadian Customs and I have now decided to get tanked in the airport bar while trying to get used to this keyboard and waiting out my 2 more hours until I can board the flight to LA.
On the bus I was trapped between a (and it truly does pain me to say this) a stereotypical arrogant Aussie boy and a kiwi with the best buns I have ever seen in my life. So, you know, there was that questioning of my choice of destination for a little while as the Aussie managed to swear his innately UNcharming way through an hour on the bus with a bunch of pensioners and OVER the music cranked in my ears while the Kiwi was nice and quiet and smiled at me a lot.
I want to take a picture of the 8 foot tall stuffed moose but I'm not that 'lassiez-faire' yet about the travelling alone thing and yanno, it's a little embrarrassing.
(I know, Sal is grinding his teeth right about now - "Take the damn picture!")
Anyways, novel #1 needs to be out of my 800 pound bag before I land in LA so I am off to read and shall check in with you later.
----later-----
The bar is now filled with people in porkpie hats, ruffled blouses and leopard cowboy hats - and that's just the men. I'm up at the bar for another drink and one of them indicates there's about 30 of them on theway to a work function. The women are in old time prom-type dresses and whooping away.
I think I want to work where they do.
The gentleman beside me asks for a sandwich and the bartender, Diane, asks him if he'd like a bag of chips with that, "Chock full of fibre and vitamin A." she says. He goes for it, even though he's SO not at an age where he requires any kind of fibre in his diet. She's good.
I'm sitting close enough to hear her (and o my god, a guy in an afro wig that must weigh more than his whole body - I could just spend the next month HERE, blogging, I swear) ... and she is the Queen of the Upsell. And enjoying it.
Me and my short short hair are no longer the novelty here and sometimes I am thankful for that.
I remember when Vanessa left a few months ago and she posted about the 'unclenching' of your entire being when you go away. Not when you go 'on vacation' but when you actually GO AWAY. And she is right - it's a feeling so hard to describe and yet so immediately recognizable that you couldn't mistake it for anything else.
Even though I wouldn't classify this trip as 'vacation' or as 'travelilng' but in some gray area in between that we can only label "a little more" - here, in a hotel bar, 3 hours from home, I am ...unclenching.
And, suddenly, I notice a grandchild of a daughter of a son of a fruit fly family I SWEAR I left behind this morning in the breeding of my house - must go killlllllll.
---later---
I left the bar and hit one of those face-down-in-a-chair massages for 25 minutes. Nice. For the first time since I got my forearm tattoo someone actually spoke it in it's own language to me. In Chinese AND Cantonese. And that was ultra cool.
And then back on the plane.
Another country. Another bar. Another airport. And another fruit fly on my glass. Seriously. In all those travel books you read where they tell you to take pictures or sightsee according to a theme - something as big as churches or as little as doors - I think my theme has been chosen FOR me.
This is the trip of the fruit fly. The fruit fly on my wine.
I may as well just go home now.
Anyways - LA is HOT. Someone needs to turn down the heat. Actually - it's humid. haha. But I is all sweaty and I do not like that.
After realizing I needed to be in a different terminal (no one mentioned that to me) I talked to a couple of nice parking men who got me onto the bus to the right terminal and now I have about 45 minutes before I board the almost final leg of the trip - 16 hours and 50 minutes to Melbourne (but I have a change of equipment in Sydney.)
I slept a little on the way down here but will probably have a drink and a gravol on the plane in a couple hours - which reminds me, must fill up water bottle for this flight.
... one final note touristy note:
I flew in here in the dark - I've been here before but not at night - and LA is HUGE. And LAX is utter madness. And there's a scarcity of people to ask for help.
But you know you're in the US when you're walking down through the terminal and you here that accent and someone gets up close to you and accents right in your ear... "Yeeew is fiiiiiiiine."
*snort* And it didn't even startle me because I was helping a confused looking woman with her luggage.
I am so Canadian.
---later, still-----
It is 2 am and I'm almost positive that I packed my gravol in my checked luggage. Which means I will not be sleeping. But which also means that I am eyelid droopy tired and unable to sleep.
My seat 'mate' has just turned his light out. He's grumpy looking. And I've gone to the bathroom twice in 3 hours so I don't think he likes me.
Good thing I forgot to fill the water bottle.
in Melbourne
Melbourne 
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