It was a dark and stormy night, the night before we were due to take off around the world and see the sights on every foreign shore. Or at least some of the foreign shores. We broke our jinx of Diana causing delays to the flight, and QF101 lifted off on time, bound for Los Angeles. We had organized to get seats where there are only two seats per row, in order to get more leg room, and settled back in the economy class level of comfort.

It was a very odd experience to depart at 12:15pm on the 9th Feb, and then land at 7:10am on the 9th Feb, after being in the air for so long. Of course, nothing being as smooth as it could be, we almost did not land when we came in. The wheels went down, the plane approached the ground, the flaps went up, and all was looking set for a lovely landing. With a mere 60m to go from the ground, the plane abruptly lurched skyward once more, and we left the city of Los Angeles once more.

The captain of the plane came on to the intercom a couple of minutes later to sarcastically inform us that this scenic tour of the city was thoughtfully provided by the tower control. It turned out that the plane that had landed before us was supposed to turn off the runway to it’s gate, but had missed the turnoff. As a result, we were left with insufficient runway space to land, since there was a plane sitting on the tarmac still. The second time around, all was perfect, and the prior plane had a decent navigator, so we made a definite descent.

Stupid Person Of The Day (SPOTD) was the woman in front of us who, when she reclined her seat the whole way, pinning my legs, was asked if we could come to some arrangement where she only half reclined her seat, so I could still move. She haughtily informed me that I should go find another seat if it was a problem. Needless to say, she made a pleasant journey over the next few hours with constant lessons as to the bony nature of my knees in her spine.

We caused all manner of problems with the forms to fill in so we could get past customs. Do you have a US visa? Yes. Then you need to fill in this form. Are you in transit only? Yes. Then you need to fill in this other form. Okay, so which form do we need to fill in? Um, both of them because the flight crew don’t know. Get on the ground and the woman at the information desk tells us that both forms are incorrect and we need another form. Present all three completed versions of the form to the guy at the customs gate who takes the transit one, and throws the other two in the bin. Simple as that, really.

Since we crossed the international date line, there were two chances for the SPOTD. Our second winner was the woman at the Los Angeles airport who woke us both up to see if we wanted to contribute to the “South East Asian Mother And Daughter Refugee Fund”. This is without doubt the most specific cause I’ve ever heard of, and given she was of south-east Asian appearance herself, it was most likely just a scam. We politely informed her in our broad Aussie accents which bus she was most welcome to take in order to make it to Hades in the least possible time.

After we went through the metal detectors, we looked around the lounge and then wandered out again, knowing we’d have to go through the metal detectors again. The second time through, I was getting my stuff off the conveyor belt and turned around to see Di being escorted over to another table. A female staff member there grabbed a swab and wiped down the handles of the bag with it, then pronounced it okay to go through. We were very curious as to what sort of test waving a piece of a hankerchief over a bag was, and found out that it was testing for the presence of explosive residues. I laughed and made a comment to Di that it was a good trick to fly all the way from Melbourne, just to blow up a plane with us on it. Di gave me a dirty look and hustled me past the security checker who was looking at me oddly. I really must remember that sarcasm does not work here.

Apart from losing a couple of hours in the time zone changes, the flight from Los Angeles to Dallas was quite uneventful.

Waiting for the plane to Sao Paulo was quite a funny game. Basically, the big screens informing people of the departure time are located outside the lounge area where people sit, so they can change the time and nobody knows. The time altered from 4:30pm to 5:06pm to 5:15pm, we noted, only because we were wandering around, stretching our legs. We finally boarded and the plane was half empty, so I quickly grabbed a row of three seats on which it would be possible to lie down later. A minute or so later, the captain came on the intercom to say there was a minor problem and they were checking it out. In essence, the plane was leaking fuel out the wing and they thought that might not be a good thing. Well, duh. A couple of announcements later, and we had to get off the plane again, because it was cancelled.

Just because it was such a zany day which seemingly had no end, the SPOTD award was handed out again. Since some of the people on the plane were in transit and were coming from countries the US is not so friendly with, the customs people wanted to locate those people first, to hold them. As we were going to be wandering around the airport for a bit, they did not want to risk them just strolling out the door and into the masses, so they called for those passengers first. Everyone looked at everyone else, trying to work out who those passengers were, since nobody was allowed off the plane until they got off and were counted.

Repeated requests for those people without visas to come forward did not work. Neither did directly approaching the most likely individuals on the plane and asking them directly if they were in transit. A few minutes later, when names were located and read out over the intercom, four Chinese men who had said that it was not them that the plane was being held up for, turned out to be the people we were waiting for after all. SPOTD x 4, making a total of six so far.

We were given $US15.00 meal vouchers to spend at any restaurant (and I use the term lightly) in the airport, and were booked onto the 9:00pm flight to Sao Paulo, which was the next flight that American Airlines was operating that day. We decided that since we were in Texas, we’d better get something Texan to eat, and headed for Dickey’s Barbecue Pit for dinner. This place proudly proclaimed it’s fare to be “lip smackin’, finger lickin’, rib ticklin’, knee slappin’, foot stompin’, great tastin’” and well, who can argue with any place that claims all that?

I figured I’d get some grated carrot as a side dish to my ribs platter, and was about to ask for it when the person in front of us ordered some cheese, and they reached into the carrot. You see, what I did not realize was that I thought was carrot was actually cheese, and that cheese is not a natural colour here. I knew it was a bright yellow colour, but under the heat lamps, it had altered to orange, and so it was most disconcerting. In the end, I settled for the beans and fries (aka “chips” to those of us who speak correct English). The drink came in a 32oz cup, which for those of us who are not metrically challenged is about 900mls. That’s a lot of beverage for your buck!

Now, the next part is a little unpleasant, so if you’re of a tender nature, or my grandparents, you should probably stop reading now. Toilets in the USA have a significantly larger amount of water in them than Aussie toilets. Now, this is hardly a new fact to a lot of people, but it is still very odd the first time you sit down, on the grounds that you’re worried about the height of the water in the bowl, and the depth to which one is descending into the bowl. Suffice to say, there is still an inch or so clearance, so there is not much of a problem.

However, the toilets in the Dallas airport have automatic sensors on them that detect things like :

1. a person entering the cubicle, causing a flush,
2. a person leaving the cubicle, causing a flush, and
3. nothing at all, causing a random flush.

With so much water in the bowl, there is a very real problem created when a random flush occurs because, well, there are certain bits that are not at seat level, and when the water goes into a hyperactive swirl, and abruptly whips all away from below you, it first does a merry dance around the inside of the bowl. This aquatic waltz leads to the sudden immersion of male anatomy in cold water which, as you might imagine, is a delightfully startling experience that one would love to repeat, say, never. Alas, the toilet I chose at the airport was designed with a zealous sensor and it went off a total of four times before I decided retreat was the better part of personal hygiene and scampered out of the cubicle. Ironically, my departure from the cubicle caused no further flushing action to be prompted.

The day ended even less pleasantly with the discovery that the seats we’d been allocated on our new flight were not a window and aisle seat, as we originally had, but in fact, right in the middle of a row of five seats. To make things more delightful, the fellow next to us spoke no English, and went to sleep promptly, meaning we could not get in or out of our seats to walk and stretch our legs during the ten hour flight. Oh happy day.

Oh, and this flight was delayed as well, due to the fact that they could not get the boarding tunnel to move to the plane. Oh even more happy day.

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001