It seems like only yesterday, I was thinking about a trip overseas in 2012. Well, right now I’m in a hotel room in Santa Monica (which fortunately has free wi-fi).
This trip snuck up on me!
The flight over was kinda horrendous. It was almost fully booked so my hopes of us getting an empty seat next to us were crushed. I felt a bit sorry for the guy who got the vacant seat in our row. He was rather tall and ended the flight with his knees poking out into the aisle but at least he had the aisle.
I was exhausted so I managed to either sleep or doze for about 10 hours of the trip which is a heroic effort for me. So why was it so horrendous even though I managed to sleep? There was a screaming child. And she screamed for about eight hours. Eight hours on a 14 hour flight. She was quiet for about the first four hours but then she started – right when everyone was trying to get some sleep. She started crying but then her parents seemed to let her go, probably hoping that she’d calm down but she ramped it up into ear splitting screams quite quickly. I was alternating between earphones and ear plugs and I could still hear her. Not fun. Not fun at all. She would calm down for about 15 minutes and just when you though that was the end of it, she’d start up again. She was actually the reason I put my earphones in the second time. I’d taken them out because they were hurting my ears a little but I could hear her screams quite clearly through the ear-plugs. My earphones are the alleged noise reduction ones and they did seem to drop the volume on her screams more effectively. Maybe that was just because I could drown them out with music.
Okay I understand that babies cry on flights. They can’t re-pressurise their ears during landing and take-off, which I know hurts. But this kid was going off for no reason at all. I walked past to go to the loo and she was kicking her mum so having a proper tantrum. Babies on planes are okay – give them a bottle and their ears will pop meaning they’ll generally settle down – but toddlers whose parents seemed unable to pacify or even control? Nuh uh.
The other reason it was horrendous? Two people – I’m assuming kids – vomited. Neither of them were in our section but you could definitely smell it. I have a habit of going to the loo that’s the furtherest distance away and every time I did, I had to walk though the terrible smell. I felt incredibly sorry for the people in those sections and initially though it didn’t smell so bad in our until we landed and we exited out through premium economy and it smelt a million times better. So no air fresher for the plebs in cattle class I guess.
Getting through customs at LAX was actually quicker than getting through customs in Melbourne. Then it was into a cab and off to our hotel in Santa Monica. We were way too early to check in so we left our bags at the hotel and walked down to the pier. The walk to the pier felt much shorter than the walk back. We both had fully laden back packs and were exhausted from the flight so you can just picture us staggering back up Santa Monica Blvd after lunch. Still, the walk probably wasn’t a bad idea as we stretched our legs and got some fresh air after being cooped up for 14 hours.
Today we rewarded ourselves with a sleep-in (a well deserved one I thought) and did some shopping. I’m now the proud owner of two new pairs of jeans, some Dermatologica mosituriser, cycling gloves, sun sleeves (even though I know I won’t need them for quite a while), two water bottles and some Honey stinger waffles and chews which I knew I shouldn’t buy because they’ll probably be delicious and I won’t be able to get them again. I was sorely tempted by a box of white chocolate and macadamia Clif Bars that were on special but they’re simply too heavy to lug around in my suitcase. I did try to find some toe covers as the ones I bought last year are pretty trashed but it’s the wrong time of year to be looking for them in America. Maybe I’ll have better luck in Seattle.
We’re off to Seattle tomorrow lunchtime. Which reminds me I should do a search for bike shops. I need a new pair of long fingered gloves.
