01/10/05: In which we catch a plane home
Thursday, 29 December, 2005
I woke up, showered and finished the packing after getting Ben up. As instructed, I stripped the bed of its sheets so they could be washed.
My dad drove us to the airport. Previously, this had been a slight bone of contention; my dad and Helena had wanted us to change our flight so that we caught the evening flight with them and arrived back on Monday morning. But I didn't want that—I wanted to arrive back on Sunday night so that we could have the whole of Monday (which was a public holiday) to recover in time for college on Tuesday. Unfortunately this meant that someone would have to make two trips to the airport which was a long way from Malibu—so far, in fact, that taxis and airport buses wouldn't come out that way. Uncle Joe had said that he would do it but of course my father being my father, he wouldn't hear of it and he dropped us off himself which was awfully nice of him, considering the fact that we were depriving him of a sleep-in after the big party the night before.
He dropped us off at what he thought was the right terminal but it was actually the wrong terminal and we had to push our trolley full of luggage over to the next one. We queued up to check in and then we queued up to get our check-in luggage x-rayed and then we queued up a third time in a very long queue that went around half the building and into a hot and stuffy room to get our cabin luggage x-rayed and our persons searched for sharp metal objects. (Of course I put the knitting needles in the check-in luggage.) I fanned Ben with the boarding passes because he said he was feeling ill.
But finally we got through and went to wait at our gate for the boarding call. I went and found a stall where I bought two tins of See's Toffee-ettes for my friend who wanted them as well as a chocolate bar for Ben.
When we boarded, we were pleased to discover that we had a two-seater row on the left hand side of the plane to ourselves. Unfortunately the people in front of us liked to put their chairs back in the reclining position and would only retract them during mealtimes. This got a little frustrating as I sat there, bent over my tray table, trying to do Greek translation; the guy in front put his seat back when I wasn't looking and I got hit on the head—twice. After simmering about it for a while, I tapped him on the shoulder and asked him sweetly if he wouldn't mind putting it up a bit. Then I had no further problems.
The printed movie guide for the flight hadn't been changed over to the October program but the actual movies had so no one, except the premier flight attendant, really knew what was screening. It turned out that there wasn't much that I wanted to see apart from a small interest in Monster-in-Law which was better than I thought it would be. I also watched bits of Millions (a rather cute story about a young boy who is overly religious [he sees saints and the weird thing is he actually knows who they are, when they were born, when they died and where they came from] and finds a bag of money thrown off a train. This happens just before all the currency is changed to the Euro ...). Der Utergang, that movie about the last days of Hitler and the Third Reich, was also being screened and I was impressed that a foreign film would even make it onto an airline's billing.
The rest of the time I spent reading Robin Hobb or trying vainly to sleep. Eventually we stumbled out of the plane in Sydney, went through customs and immigration, declared whatever food we had on us and was waved through, and was met at the gate at 8 pm Sydney time by Ben May who had our car, parked near the customs offices so he wouldn't have to pay for parking, and who asked if it was okay if he drove back to church where his bike was and then we drove home ourselves. We said fine, even though we were very jet-lagged and it was something like 2 in the morning in LA. Near Barney's, Ben May handed over the wheel to me as Ben was in no state to drive. Unfortunately, as we set off, I realised that we had all of Ben May's keys—including the ones to his room in Chappo house. As there wasn't much I could do about it, we just went home and pretty much fell into bed.
And so ended our trip.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
|
|
Disqus comments
Other comments