that's where i'll be soon, eh.
i will be taking the time i get in airports and aeroplanes in the next while to write some entries for this blog. because i have so many things to talk about, and have had so little time to talk about them with you. goddamn having a life, hey?
i am really hoping i make the connection between my toronto - los angeles and los angeles - melbourne flights. i am going to get to toronto airport very early and try to arrange some kind of bag deal with american airlines, see if they can put it somwhere i can claim it immediately, or if they can make sure it's one of the first out so i can grab it and run.
but i've decided if the worst happens and my bag is not ready by the time i need to check in, i will leave it there - it has my address on it - and get them to send it to me later. i mean . . . it's less expensive and less emotionally and physically draining to do that than it would be to miss my flight, right?
i've had such a lovely time in toronto. *sigh* will update in the next few days with lots of words and pics. i promise!
Showing posts with label airports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label airports. Show all posts
16 May 2008
1 May 2008
YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU LIKE
There are many ways in which you can be made to feel tiny, powerless, frustrated, anxious, guilty, and utterly alone and homesick.
My flight was due to leave at 9:45am from LA and arrive in Vancouver at about 12:40. My aim was to check in at 7:45am, so the night before I packed everything neatly into my bags, and made sure everything was in order – passport, e-ticket, address in Vancouver, departure form for the USA, toiletries in a clear plastic bag, sharp stuff in check-in luggage, etc. We went to bed early, but I woke up in the middle of the night and stayed awake for at least an hour. I woke up again just before 6am and turned off the alarm (set for 6:30) before it had a chance to go off. Showered, dressed, ate a bagel. Said goodbye to the hospitable Rohan at about 6:50, and schlepped my bags over to the corner of Rose and Lincoln to catch the bus. The walk took me longer than expected – probably about 25 minutes. I caught the bus at 7:20-ish, and all ran smoothly. Talked a bit to a guy who lives in LA but grew up in Montreal, and was nice in that friendly American way. Hopped off at the LAX shuttle bus, and had the following amusing exchange:
“Hi. Excuse me, does this shuttle go to Terminal 7?”
“Oh no, it goes to New Jersey.”
“. . .”
“It goes first to New Jersey, and then to Terminal 7.”
“. . . Ha! Stop shitting me!”
“Oh, I ain’t shitting you. . . Naw, it goes to all the terminals.”
Got off at Terminal 7 at about 8:10am, to find that it only services United Airlines. My ticket was for Air Canada. Asked one of the few customer service people, and he confirmed that it was Air Canada operated by United, and I could do self check-in with an Australian passport. Got to self check-in, and tried to do so. Couldn’t. Talked to another person on the phone next to the check-in bit, and eventually got a confirmation number from her (it was so loud in the airport I could barely hear myself think, let alone understand someone talking 60 miles an hour on the phone), did all the check-in business, and a guy came over to put my bags through. At which point he looked at my Australian passport with its visa waiver thingy and told me I had to wait for someone higher up on the chain. Waited. Waited. Felt a headache coming on. About 15 minutes later someone came, took a look at my passport, pressed something like 4 keys on the computer and sent me on my way.
At about 8:40, already frustrated at the stupid “Easy check-in” system of ineptitude, I made my way to security. First up someone examined my passport with all manner of little torches – presumably to detect forgery – and asked me how old I was. When I said 26 (which, you know, I am, as it says on my passport) she exclaimed how young I looked “with yo’ baby face!” She was nice, though (and rather amusingly said, “Atta boy”, when I handed her my passport), so I was happy again. Until I got to the scanning section, where I had to take off pretty much all my clothes (OK, shoes, socks, belt, keys, coins, jacket or jumper) and put things in separate trays. So caught up was I with making sure I was OK to get through, I forgot to take my laptop out of my bag. It got put through again after took the laptop out, asked about the camera, put it back on the conveyor belt. Walked through the metal detector and was asked to once again produce my passport and boarding information. Oh, the dreaded words. “I’ll just ask you to step aside here, sir. You’ve been selected by the airline for further security screening.” I waited in the little pen, surrounded by ropes, until yet another security officer took my bag and shoes and other trays of bits and pieces, and asked for my passport and boarding info. Off to the side I went, where I got the pat down from the guy (I wonder if they do like Australian airports tend to do and use female security to pat down women passengers? I did notice that through my entire time at the airport I got ‘Sir’ three or four times, ‘boy’ and ‘Ma’am’ only once). He then proceeded to swab my computer, shoes, and every pocket of my bag, and threw out the bottle of water I had completely forgotten about. The swabs went into a little machine thing, which told me that no traces of explosives were found on any of my things. I was quite happy about that. Once the last one was done, he handed me my belt, said, “Pack your stuff up”, and wandered away, so I was left in the middle of the security section of LAX with my stuff all over the table putting on my shoes and feeling more alone than I have for ages. If I could have wished for one thing right then it would have been for a friend (preferably Dan) to be waiting for me to give me a hug at the other side.
No such luck. Instead I found myself walking several miles to my departure gate and wondering how the hell I was going to be able to get through all this shit when I flew in from Toronto with only an hour and a half between that flight and the flight out to Auckland/Melbourne. After the disgusting coffee the day before I went for a café latte at Starbucks, which was acceptable after I added 2 sugars and a good few shakes of chocolate and cinnamon. I sat down to relax in the departure lounge for the last 10 minuted before boarding, but immediately got paged to come to the desk. Once there I was required once again to produce my passport and boarding info, was asked if I was coming back through the USA within thirty days, got my visa waiver info reattached to my passport, and then removed, watched the three customer service people try to assign me a seat on two different computers, and started stressing again that I was not ever going to be able to leave the hellhole that is LAX.
Seriously, it’s enough to make me paranoid about travelling as a transperson.
But I did. I made it. I’m now on the (overheated) plane to Vancouver with a huge group of middle-aged American couples who are all heading to the same thing in Canada (no idea what). The current temperature in Vancouver is allegedly 8 degrees. Given that I’ve spent the last 4 days sun(burn)ning myself in temperatures between about 25 and 32 degrees, I am not looking forward to the cold. Out the dirty window I can just see the west coast of the USA scribbling its way into the ocean, pressing against lines of hills, looking sleepy and yellow-dry under the haze.
Me on the plane today
I’m looking forward to seeing friends, and I am really excited about the conference, but at the moment I am tired and feel like crying and I want nothing more than to crawl into my own bed with my own Dan and sleep for a year.
ETA: HOLY FUCK! A MOUNTAIN! Um, sorry. It’s just huge and has snow all over it. I wonder what mountain it is. Wow.
ETA2: Oh, and they also cut the lock off my checked through luggage and went through it to check out if that was explosive, too.
ETA3: VANCOUVER. IS. GORGEOUS. And not cold, but refreshingly cool. Holy moly. It’s beautiful. Stunning. Mountains with snow when you look down the street. Clichés of awesome. And our condo is, one might say, premium. Very civilised. Az scored on this one!
ETA4: I’ll try to get my photos up soon. Some are already on flickr.
Planewing at sunrise over the Pacific
My flight was due to leave at 9:45am from LA and arrive in Vancouver at about 12:40. My aim was to check in at 7:45am, so the night before I packed everything neatly into my bags, and made sure everything was in order – passport, e-ticket, address in Vancouver, departure form for the USA, toiletries in a clear plastic bag, sharp stuff in check-in luggage, etc. We went to bed early, but I woke up in the middle of the night and stayed awake for at least an hour. I woke up again just before 6am and turned off the alarm (set for 6:30) before it had a chance to go off. Showered, dressed, ate a bagel. Said goodbye to the hospitable Rohan at about 6:50, and schlepped my bags over to the corner of Rose and Lincoln to catch the bus. The walk took me longer than expected – probably about 25 minutes. I caught the bus at 7:20-ish, and all ran smoothly. Talked a bit to a guy who lives in LA but grew up in Montreal, and was nice in that friendly American way. Hopped off at the LAX shuttle bus, and had the following amusing exchange:
“Hi. Excuse me, does this shuttle go to Terminal 7?”
“Oh no, it goes to New Jersey.”
“. . .”
“It goes first to New Jersey, and then to Terminal 7.”
“. . . Ha! Stop shitting me!”
“Oh, I ain’t shitting you. . . Naw, it goes to all the terminals.”
Got off at Terminal 7 at about 8:10am, to find that it only services United Airlines. My ticket was for Air Canada. Asked one of the few customer service people, and he confirmed that it was Air Canada operated by United, and I could do self check-in with an Australian passport. Got to self check-in, and tried to do so. Couldn’t. Talked to another person on the phone next to the check-in bit, and eventually got a confirmation number from her (it was so loud in the airport I could barely hear myself think, let alone understand someone talking 60 miles an hour on the phone), did all the check-in business, and a guy came over to put my bags through. At which point he looked at my Australian passport with its visa waiver thingy and told me I had to wait for someone higher up on the chain. Waited. Waited. Felt a headache coming on. About 15 minutes later someone came, took a look at my passport, pressed something like 4 keys on the computer and sent me on my way.
At about 8:40, already frustrated at the stupid “Easy check-in” system of ineptitude, I made my way to security. First up someone examined my passport with all manner of little torches – presumably to detect forgery – and asked me how old I was. When I said 26 (which, you know, I am, as it says on my passport) she exclaimed how young I looked “with yo’ baby face!” She was nice, though (and rather amusingly said, “Atta boy”, when I handed her my passport), so I was happy again. Until I got to the scanning section, where I had to take off pretty much all my clothes (OK, shoes, socks, belt, keys, coins, jacket or jumper) and put things in separate trays. So caught up was I with making sure I was OK to get through, I forgot to take my laptop out of my bag. It got put through again after took the laptop out, asked about the camera, put it back on the conveyor belt. Walked through the metal detector and was asked to once again produce my passport and boarding information. Oh, the dreaded words. “I’ll just ask you to step aside here, sir. You’ve been selected by the airline for further security screening.” I waited in the little pen, surrounded by ropes, until yet another security officer took my bag and shoes and other trays of bits and pieces, and asked for my passport and boarding info. Off to the side I went, where I got the pat down from the guy (I wonder if they do like Australian airports tend to do and use female security to pat down women passengers? I did notice that through my entire time at the airport I got ‘Sir’ three or four times, ‘boy’ and ‘Ma’am’ only once). He then proceeded to swab my computer, shoes, and every pocket of my bag, and threw out the bottle of water I had completely forgotten about. The swabs went into a little machine thing, which told me that no traces of explosives were found on any of my things. I was quite happy about that. Once the last one was done, he handed me my belt, said, “Pack your stuff up”, and wandered away, so I was left in the middle of the security section of LAX with my stuff all over the table putting on my shoes and feeling more alone than I have for ages. If I could have wished for one thing right then it would have been for a friend (preferably Dan) to be waiting for me to give me a hug at the other side.
No such luck. Instead I found myself walking several miles to my departure gate and wondering how the hell I was going to be able to get through all this shit when I flew in from Toronto with only an hour and a half between that flight and the flight out to Auckland/Melbourne. After the disgusting coffee the day before I went for a café latte at Starbucks, which was acceptable after I added 2 sugars and a good few shakes of chocolate and cinnamon. I sat down to relax in the departure lounge for the last 10 minuted before boarding, but immediately got paged to come to the desk. Once there I was required once again to produce my passport and boarding info, was asked if I was coming back through the USA within thirty days, got my visa waiver info reattached to my passport, and then removed, watched the three customer service people try to assign me a seat on two different computers, and started stressing again that I was not ever going to be able to leave the hellhole that is LAX.
Seriously, it’s enough to make me paranoid about travelling as a transperson.
But I did. I made it. I’m now on the (overheated) plane to Vancouver with a huge group of middle-aged American couples who are all heading to the same thing in Canada (no idea what). The current temperature in Vancouver is allegedly 8 degrees. Given that I’ve spent the last 4 days sun(burn)ning myself in temperatures between about 25 and 32 degrees, I am not looking forward to the cold. Out the dirty window I can just see the west coast of the USA scribbling its way into the ocean, pressing against lines of hills, looking sleepy and yellow-dry under the haze.
I’m looking forward to seeing friends, and I am really excited about the conference, but at the moment I am tired and feel like crying and I want nothing more than to crawl into my own bed with my own Dan and sleep for a year.
ETA: HOLY FUCK! A MOUNTAIN! Um, sorry. It’s just huge and has snow all over it. I wonder what mountain it is. Wow.
ETA2: Oh, and they also cut the lock off my checked through luggage and went through it to check out if that was explosive, too.
ETA3: VANCOUVER. IS. GORGEOUS. And not cold, but refreshingly cool. Holy moly. It’s beautiful. Stunning. Mountains with snow when you look down the street. Clichés of awesome. And our condo is, one might say, premium. Very civilised. Az scored on this one!
ETA4: I’ll try to get my photos up soon. Some are already on flickr.
27 April 2008
AUCKLAND AND LA: 1
Sitting in Auckland airport, have 2 hours before we leave, 1 hour to check in. Flight from Melbourne arrived slightly earlier, so we have longer to wait. We’ve found a business desk in the terminal where you can use wireless . . . FOR MONEY. But I’m too stingy for that.
Az and me.
Instead I can tell you about the clouds that looked like flocks of sheep, the wing bouncing in the mild turbulence on the way into Auckland, the flight attendant who busied himself getting me a vegetarian meal because (surprise, sur-frikking-prise) they didn’t have one for me. Apparently Air New Zealand only do meaty and vegan meals from Melbs to Auckland, and if you’re not vegan you supposedly must eat meat. Bizarre. Have checked to make sure I’ll get vegetarian meals on the way to LAX. I plan to sleep a lot on this next flight.
I was dropped off at the airport by Saj and Es, and got lots of hugs from them and Dan before going through the chompy gates of doom. Met Az at the airport and also got to meet his brother and mum, yay! Have not yet been harassed for gender variance, but have been misread all over the place. The man at check-in had to “go and check something with the passports”, the boarding staff checked my pass and called me “Jonathan” when most other people were “Sir” and “Ma’am”, and the meal-hunting flight attendant (who produced a very nice meal in the end) called me “Miss Williams”. I’ve decided to use the men’s toilets for this whole trip – just suck it up and get used to it.
I watched “The Golden Compass” during the flight. Wow, it’s packed with awesome actors, isn’t it? It was quite fun, but obviously not as rich as the book, and I still feel like there’s something missing, something that makes it all a little . . . flat. I found with the books, too, that they felt a bit “and then, and then, and then” – that is to say, saga-iffic. I suppose, though, that it’s not a whole story, so you have to take it in the context of the trilogy. Of which I’ve only read 2, because the death of my favourite character just made me stop caring. *Sigh*
OK, enough rambling. I’ll write more from LA and post it when I arrive. Ciao.
lights below the clouds
swimming ghostly in the night
I see atlantis
slow, a rim of light
dawn slips across the planewing
we sink through our dreams
Rohan and me
Arrived safe and sound. Was picked up by Rohan, Trav and Tasha, and waved goodbye to Az at LA. The 12 hours from Auckland to LA could have been worse – they could have been slightly better with more sleep, too. Strangely, I’m not feeling too jetlagged, just very tired as I might be on any night if I only got 5 hours sleep.
As soon as I arrived at Rohan’s I felt I was really in America – Venice beach was in full weekend mode, with the footpath market pulsing. Mats gridded with handpainted, bejewelled skulls, a different band every twenty metres, photos, paintings, beggars, people on bikes (all with enormous curved handlebars – seems to be the thing over here). Rohan pointed out the landmarks – the place Romy and Michelle live in High School Reunion, the basketball courts, the outdoor gym where one might linger to admire/gape unbelievingly at the enormously muscled, sweaty and oiled men. The fake boobs. I had strawberry lemonade (lemons, sugar, real strawberries), then we went to the drug store (actually called a pharmacy) and got A GALLON of milk and some bagels and BUTTER IN STICKS. AHAHAHA!
Then I had a powernap and we caught the bus to Rohan’s beau’s house in and played boardgames and drank wine and OMG RAW BROCCOLI WITH RANCH DRESSING! And now I’m nicking their wireless and eating VEGETARIAN HOT DOG WITH TOMATO SAUCE AND MUSTARD. YUM! And Rohan made bean curry!
I can’t wait to go to sleep.
I hope you're all well.
Instead I can tell you about the clouds that looked like flocks of sheep, the wing bouncing in the mild turbulence on the way into Auckland, the flight attendant who busied himself getting me a vegetarian meal because (surprise, sur-frikking-prise) they didn’t have one for me. Apparently Air New Zealand only do meaty and vegan meals from Melbs to Auckland, and if you’re not vegan you supposedly must eat meat. Bizarre. Have checked to make sure I’ll get vegetarian meals on the way to LAX. I plan to sleep a lot on this next flight.
I was dropped off at the airport by Saj and Es, and got lots of hugs from them and Dan before going through the chompy gates of doom. Met Az at the airport and also got to meet his brother and mum, yay! Have not yet been harassed for gender variance, but have been misread all over the place. The man at check-in had to “go and check something with the passports”, the boarding staff checked my pass and called me “Jonathan” when most other people were “Sir” and “Ma’am”, and the meal-hunting flight attendant (who produced a very nice meal in the end) called me “Miss Williams”. I’ve decided to use the men’s toilets for this whole trip – just suck it up and get used to it.
I watched “The Golden Compass” during the flight. Wow, it’s packed with awesome actors, isn’t it? It was quite fun, but obviously not as rich as the book, and I still feel like there’s something missing, something that makes it all a little . . . flat. I found with the books, too, that they felt a bit “and then, and then, and then” – that is to say, saga-iffic. I suppose, though, that it’s not a whole story, so you have to take it in the context of the trilogy. Of which I’ve only read 2, because the death of my favourite character just made me stop caring. *Sigh*
OK, enough rambling. I’ll write more from LA and post it when I arrive. Ciao.
lights below the clouds
swimming ghostly in the night
I see atlantis
slow, a rim of light
dawn slips across the planewing
we sink through our dreams
Arrived safe and sound. Was picked up by Rohan, Trav and Tasha, and waved goodbye to Az at LA. The 12 hours from Auckland to LA could have been worse – they could have been slightly better with more sleep, too. Strangely, I’m not feeling too jetlagged, just very tired as I might be on any night if I only got 5 hours sleep.
As soon as I arrived at Rohan’s I felt I was really in America – Venice beach was in full weekend mode, with the footpath market pulsing. Mats gridded with handpainted, bejewelled skulls, a different band every twenty metres, photos, paintings, beggars, people on bikes (all with enormous curved handlebars – seems to be the thing over here). Rohan pointed out the landmarks – the place Romy and Michelle live in High School Reunion, the basketball courts, the outdoor gym where one might linger to admire/gape unbelievingly at the enormously muscled, sweaty and oiled men. The fake boobs. I had strawberry lemonade (lemons, sugar, real strawberries), then we went to the drug store (actually called a pharmacy) and got A GALLON of milk and some bagels and BUTTER IN STICKS. AHAHAHA!
Then I had a powernap and we caught the bus to Rohan’s beau’s house in and played boardgames and drank wine and OMG RAW BROCCOLI WITH RANCH DRESSING! And now I’m nicking their wireless and eating VEGETARIAN HOT DOG WITH TOMATO SAUCE AND MUSTARD. YUM! And Rohan made bean curry!
I can’t wait to go to sleep.
I hope you're all well.
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