26/09/05: In which we say goodbye and take another plane
Tuesday, 20 December, 2005
I woke up late (as usual). The airport limo/bus was due to arrive at 2 pm. I decide to let Ben sleep (he still had a bad back but I fear that everyone thought he was extremely lazy). I had done all the packing I could do without Ben awake so I spent some time with my mum and helped her pack (folded all her clothes). I also went online to check my mail.
But unexpectedly the airport bus came at 1 pm and we only had 20 min to get ready. I got Ben up, he had a quick shower, I finished all the packing, we said goodbye to Uncle Jack and Auntie Lois and took some photos together:
and then we were off.
It was a 1.5 hour trip back to Toronto and I knitted all the way. At Pearson Toronto Airport we only got one trolley (because they were $1 each and I had run out of coins) and then we all checked in. For some reason, US customs and immigration was done on Canadian soil; once again they took our fingerprints and our photographs. The guy who was processing our data kept asking lots of personal questions about us—things like, “What do you do back home?” and “If you're students, how did you afford to take this trip?” We answered him honestly and then I figured that he owed us one so I asked him, “What do you do with all this information?” He said, “We frame it,” and clearly did not want to tell us. (Which was really stupid because a couple of weeks later I looked it up online and it tells you exactly what they do with the information. For some reason they don't tell you at the time and I think they should; it would probably stop people from feeling totally apprehensive about entering the States.)
We took our luggage to be x-rayed and then our bags were opened and roughly searched by impassive personnel before being loaded. Then we lined up to go through the x-ray stuff for the cabin baggage. I got singled out for a random bag check by a lady with a very strong accent—I had to ask her to keep repeating what she was saying. (Later Peter joked that I got singled out because I asked too many questions. I scoffed at him but privately wondered if it was true.)
Peter managed to get us into the Admiral Club. We had to pay to buy lunch but coffee, tea and biscuits were free. Peter, my mum and I went looking for a bookstore but there were just little newsagents and gift shops up and down the wing. My mum bought some food for the flight because American Airlines domestic are like Jetstar—they don't feed you unless you pay for it. She was also looking for something to read so I recommended The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which is from the point of view of a boy with autism who likes to number all his chapters according to the Fibonacci sequence, and she bought it. There was no sign of Anansi Boys (which you'd think would be perfect airplane reading) and further exploration revealed no more shops which was quite disappointing.
We returned to the lounge where I read until the light was called. We were scattered all over the plane but at least we were on the same flight and Ben and I had a 3-seater to ourselves. It cost $2 to get headsets but we decided not to bother because they were just showing Seabiscuit and I wasn't interested. I spent most of the 5-hour flight reading or drilling Ben on our summer Greek vocab. I watched the land below—it was like a patchwork quilt of fields. We flew over one of the Great Lakes and I was awed at how massive it was. One by one little lights started to come on in people's houses—twinkles in the dark. I think it's interesting that one small light can be so obvious in a dark place but darkness in sunlight is hardly noticeable.
It was 11 pm Toronto time by the time we landed in LA but it was only 8:30 pm LA time. We said goodbye to my mum and Peter who went on to catch their connecting flight to Sydney. My dad and Helena (my stepmother) were at the luggage carousel and they hardly noticed that I had cut my hair. They had arrived an hour or two before us and had already collected their bags. We collected our bags and I was very grateful for the fact that US customs and immigration had already been done at the other end and we didn't have to face that now.
LA airport is huge. I can't remember how many terminals there are but it's so massive, we had to take a bus to the rental car place. My dad had already booked us a car but he had forgotten about the luggage. Still, he's an expert packer and somehow we all managed to squeeze in and then we drove out to Malibu.
While words like “Bloor”, “Dundas” and “Spadina” conjure up Toronto, words like “Pasadena”, “Santa Monica” and “Malibu” conjure up LA. LA has these 16-lane freeways which run all over the city, which sprawls forever outwards like an unfurling carpet. There are barely any high-rises and I couldn't tell you where the CBD is. The drive to Malibu, in barely any traffic, took nearly an hour as Malibu is in the far north. We were going to Uncle Joe and Auntie Ruth's place (who are actually my uncle and auntie—Uncle Joe is my father's younger brother). They had built their own house at Malibu but I had never been there before.
When we walked through the front door, I saw a baby grand piano sitting in the foyer. It was a real 1902 Steinway and it was gorgeous:
(This picture was taken the following day.)
They had an absolutely massive kitchen with two fridges, two sinks and a giant gas stove. In the lounge there was an enormous flat screen TV on the wall with hundreds of cable channels.
Auntie Ruth was in her pyjamas (because it was 11 pm by this time) but she insisted on feeding us chicken soup and salad and whatever other food she could press upon us. She was very kind (she's one of the few relatives who is a Christian). She gave us the house tour—Uncle Joe's study (*drool* such a nice study!), the fountains at either end of the house which have nice feature lights (I tried to take a picture but it didn't work), the room which she uses as a gym, the sauna, the steam room, the guest bedrooms (all the bedrooms plus the gym have their own bathrooms) and the master bedroom (which has two bathrooms [one of them has a TV in the bathroom so you can watch it while you're on the loo in a strategically-placed mirror], a spa bath, walk-in wardrobes and a secret space up to a little attic which Auntie Ruth called her prayer room). Altogether there were four bedrooms and seven bathrooms in that house, and Ben and I had a nice little suite on the ground floor.
I don't know what it is about travel but it really takes it out of you; we went straight to bed.
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.
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