Airlines Don’t Suck So Much

Subtitle: A380’s and Home
So I’m back home now—back in the US of A. Actually I was two days ago, but I slept most of the first day then didn’t feel like writing a blog the second day. This just happens to be my 63rd blog post, which means of the 150 or so days I was in Australia, I managed to write one for every two and a half days which isn’t bad. Now to the blog title:
I can easily say that this trip, as apposed to the trip that brought me to Australia (Airlines Suck) was ten times less stressful and difficult. I have to admit it all looked to be going pear shaped when I left Monday morning and a wheel burst on my luggage about half way to the train/bus station that would take me to the airport then there was a good 40 minute wait to check in and drop off bags, but it got resounded better after that. In fairness the check-in wait was due in majority to the brand spanking new A380 (which I flew on) heading to LAX, and what I could only guess was a 747 headed New Zealand and on to LAX. On, what I estimated to be its 25th passengered voyage across the pacific, the A380 is a monster. It doesn’t look quite so imposing from the outside but from the inside the wings are enormous and the cabin is ridiculously wide (on the bottom level). While at the gate, the wings bow, bending under weight or length. As you take off, your ears pop just but the speed which it has to attain to get off the ground. The wings—which must be made out of the most flexible material ever—straighten, wobble and bounce around in the wind. But when you’re up, clouds that would disturb any other plane are shredded by the enormity of this plane. This led to one fairly smooth flight, and the softest landing I’ve ever experienced (compared to one of the worst—top 3—on the connecting flight). The landing was partly due to the fact that the land was much closer than anticipated because of intense fog in the LA area (the pilot had threatened a missed attempt it was so bad). Surprisingly, this angry bull of a plane came to a stop before the end of the run way and taxied to the gate surrounded by airport police (bizarre?!). Due to the crazy amount of people on the plane LAX used two baggage belts to distribute luggage, which was a pain in the ass for singular travelers like me. Customs was a breeze, and my bags were deposited again (checked through, thanks Qantas!) and with boarding pass in had (thanks Qantas!) I could jump in the insanely long queue for security at Terminal 4 LAX for my connecting flight. 6 hours later I was in JFK (thanks STA! ), picking up my luggage from a near empty luggage belt because everyone took their lives and their kitchen sinks on the plane as carry on (thanks AA baggage fees! ), and in a car bound for Kinnelon, home.
It’s cold here. And there are no leaves on the trees. This bugs me.
Melbourne—‘the most livable city in the world’ (Economist tested, David approved).

AusTour 15: Adelaide an Arriving and Intro

Barry had left to return to Melbourne as his classes were starting up again, as Uni Melbourne didn’t start up for another week I had some more time to hit some more places. I chose to explore Adelaide for those days. I arrived into Adelaide later that night after leaving Sydney, slightly confused when the captain announced the time adding ‘if you want to change your watches.’ Id talked to a lady who had just come in international so I thought nothing of it, until I realized my phone clock and every other clock in the airport differed by 30 min’s (not a full hour, surprising). I’d done I little bit of research into how exactly to get from Adelaide airport to my accommodation—My Place Backpackers. I had to take a bus, I didn’t know which one nor when exactly I had to get off. So once again I was learning a transportation system as it was being imposed upon me. Needless to say I almost missed my stop and would have if I hadn’t asked the driver. I stepped out onto the street for the first time entirely in Adelaide (And south Australia for that matter)…and it looked nothing like I thought it would. It didn’t look bad, just different then what I had imagined. I partially blame Bill Bryson for this one I think. He chucked Adelaide and Canberra (Australia’s Capital) to close together in his book ‘In a Sunburned Country.’ I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, something like green lawns and white stone buildings both of which didn’t exist where I was standing and especially in the middle of the night.

Before diving head first into the warm waters of the next days schedule Ill finish this post by describing what Adelaide was, if it wasn’t what I thought it was. If at any point the previous paragraph came off as me depredating Adelaide it was because that was my initial impression as a fell asleep and it wasn’t until the next day (and daylight) that I found it a much nicer place. Adelaide has a pretty bizarre set up. The CBD runs along Torrens River, with North Adelaide sitting on the other side. King William Street runs vertically from north Adelaide through the CBD. Now here something peculiar happens. Road going horizontally across King William Street change names on the other side (Hindley becomes Rundle, Currie becomes Grenfell, Waymouth becomes Pirie, Franklin becomes Flinders etc). Adelaide began as a planned city, planned by Colonel William Light (Lights vision) to whom there is a statue on a hill on the north side of the Torrens. So while the previous illogicality seems to make no sense, there is a sense of direction to the city and it’s fairly easy to navigate. One of the other advantages is the ring (moat) of gardens or parklands that surrounds the inner city. As the inner city ends there is a block of Greenland before the suburbs begin, creating a buffer between the city and the suburbs. So in conclusion Adelaide proceeded to dispel any misconceptions I might have had about it the night before…which was good because I was there for two days.

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AusTour 2: Brizzie Day 1

In the Australians ever present penchant for shortening names, they have affectionately renamed Brisbane to Brizzie. It was the first stop on our Aus Tour 08, as I’ve decided to call it, and we flew in Saturday night 2 weeks ago now. A quick note on leaving (and one Barry was considerably distressed about) was that the airport we left from (Avalon) didn’t require a single bit of ID to retrieve a ticket, check baggage, go through security or even board the plane. The plane itself from an airbus a320, which I think is the first time I’ve been on an airbus and distressed me because I was in seat 15D (15 and D is the 4 letter in the alphabet…Lost anyone?...Sawyers seat). Anyway, when we got into BNE I was past the seat I had spent about 4 hours in the last time I was in Brisbane, I was glad I wasn’t staying this long this time. In fact we were out of the plane and out of the airport in 20 minutes on a bus on route to a destination I didn’t exactly know where was. So it was partly my fault that we ended up at Roma street station, a 40 minute walk to our hostel (Google maps said it was closer), but it wasn’t my fault the next bit went wrong. We decided to take a train to Brunswick station, after figuring out a transit system neither of us had seen or taken before we found a train going the right way leaving in four minutes. We were on the platform for at least 30 minutes. 4 trains should have come and gone in that time…great first impression Brisbane! Needless to say we made it eventually to Bunk Backpackers Brisbane (a hostel in the same vein as Gilligans, large 8 person rooms with ensuite bathrooms and showers). One thing that was particularly disturbing (or artistic genius) was the bizarre decoration around the lobby including chandeliers made up of headless Barbies, a giant coastal map complete with decorations and out in the bar bird cages with Barbies inside. Bizarre. Due to the incredible delays by Brisbane city transport, it wasn’t long before some of Barry’s friends from Swinburne showed up on the later flight (16 of them in total). We had planned to meet them in Brisbane, and they definitively made Brisbane a 10 times more exciting city.

Outta Here

Its Spring Break…again! So I’m getting out of Melbourne with Barry from Hartford. We’re flying up to Brisbane tonight, to begin a trip down the coast towards and into Sydney. I’m lazy, so I stole Barry's map of the key stops on the trip.
I should ignore the part about being eaten by a shark. Not because it wont happen, but because I wont be posting a blog anytime in the next 13 days. I also have an extra part tagged on to the end of this trip, down to Adelaide in South Australia being as i have two weeks off for break and Barry only has one.

A Humorous Post on Airports

While I wait for my dinner to cook I just wanted to share some thought about airports, specifically and generally the ones I’ve visited recently.

The first thought comes from LAX: after arriving at the airport from my luxurious night at the Hilton I had checked in and luckily gotten tickets on that nights flight, I decided to take a seat and (like most people waiting in an airport), decided to watch the planes. This would have been fine but the genius who designed the Tom Bradley airport thought it would be nice to have giant glass windows that overlook the run ways on either side. He also thought it would be a good idea to place structural bars strategically up and across the windows. Additionally he thought it’s a good idea and aesthetically pleasing to place a bar here:
That’s right, when sitting in the not so comfortable airport seats, trying to watch the planes take off and land you are instead greeted by a bar that completely blocks the view of anything at eye level. Genius.

The second thought also comes from LAX: now I was stuck in LAX for a good 9 hours, so I had a little while to just people watch (one of my favorite activities), and this thought comes from people watching. People have to pass time in airports, this is most true with little kids, during my approximate 3 hour sit in one place (before I couldn’t take it anymore) at least 5 kids were told to count the number of airplanes they could see. 2 of them skipped the number 13 (I should also mention that you could only see 7 planes—I should know, I counted). Innocently they went from 11 to 12 and then straight on 14 without thought of 13. I suppose I see reason behind this, after all if New York City sky scrapers can skip floor 13, why shouldn’t little kids. It wasn’t until about 2 weeks into my NYC internship that I realized that my building had mysteriously lost its 13th floor—I was on the 14th.

The third thought comes from Brisbane International: it was at this point that I encountered my first Australian Escalator. Having spent 6 weeks running up and down the escalators at the port authority in New York city I thought I had a pretty good grasp of how escalators operated. With my head in the clouds, tired and exhausted I tried to board the down escalator. When I was met by stairs rising towards me I took a step back, puzzled and bemused. It seems escalators, like their road counterparts travel on the opposite side. Luckily no one was around to see it—although that’s probably the reason I boarded the wrong one in the first place.

there were probably other things i needed to mention but my dinner is ready...and by ready i mean burnt.

Airlines Suck

So I arrived at EWR with plenty of time for my 6:40 flight only to find out that it had been delayed to 7:35. Ok, well that’s fine, 55 minutes…unless of course you have only 1hr 40mins to catch a connecting flight at LAX. In typical Newark fashion we sat on the tarmac for an hour, and then because of a storm front to the west we had to go around it and up into Canada. Needless to say we didn’t get into LAX till 1-something. I had missed my connecting flight…so without any luggage I spent the night in a hotel only to get up and spend the next day sitting in LAX…for 9 hours. Departing reasonably on time, we spent the next 11 hours flying only to be notified by out captain that we had run out of fuel and would have to stop in Noumea. I should say that we hadn’t strictly speaking run out of fuel but would if we continued to Brisbane because of a storm over Brisbane. Noumea looked lovely, from what we could see from our small 12 inch windows, but yet again I had a connecting flight in Brisbane (which I had 4 hours this time). 2 hours later we took off again; to arrive in Brisbane 50 minuets after my connection to cairns had left. So I sat in Brisbane airport for 6 hours. Narrowly avoiding passing out completely in some fairly uncomfortable airport chairs I got on my flight and made my way to Cairns, arriving 36 hours after everyone who I was supposed to be traveling with. Cairns is awesome though.
Now pictures of Noumea (c) Amanda Sacks (the person next to me, because i couldn't be arsed to get my camera out):