Happy New Year!!
So it’s been a beautiful, sunny weekend here in Sydney, so I decided to finally start working on my tan and headed back out to Bondi yesterday. I am mostly browner, but I am sunburnt on my eyelids and up to my eyebrows. Ow! Pretty badly, too. Completely missed that spot with the sunscreen. But I’ve been missing that spot with the sunscreen my whole life and never got a noticeable sunburn there! Oh well, now I’ve learned.
Anyway, had a nice time back home for two weeks in spite of the horrible weather for most of the time I was there. My journey back here was more stressful than I would have liked. First of all, I got called by VAustralia a few days before I had to fly out, telling me that my New York to LA flight was canceled and the only one they could possibly squeeze me on was a Delta flight that was only an hour and a half after my landing in New York – on a separate airline booked on a separate website/itinerary so I’d have to wait for luggage and switch terminals and check in again. I was panicking that I wasn’t going to make it, but since they called me at night and I was tired and panicking, I wasn’t thinking it through and it wasn’t until the next day that I thought to call them back and what I should do if I missed that flight, at which point I was informed that a seat had opened up on a later flight so I had more like four and a half hours, yay. And that meant only an hour and a half in LA, which I thought was fantastic because I hate the LA airport and since that connecting flight was booked on the same itinerary, I’d have luggage checked through and my boarding pass all ready to go, so I wouldn’t need the extra time there.
Of course I should have expected it would all go horribly wrong. First of all, I mentioned I hated LA airport and JFK is not so bad – but I’d never been to the Delta terminal of JFK before and whew, it’s almost as bad as LAX. And the lines took
forever. It took about half an hour for the bags to even start coming out, so that alone would have meant I’d have missed check in if I hadn’t managed to change my flight, but then check in and security at Delta took so long as well that I was getting impatient even with all my extra time. And of course the Delta agent was so confused about my itinerary booked through VAustralia (and kept asking “what’s the other airline?” even though she had my itinerary printout with the V logo right in front of her) and was convinced that she couldn’t check in either me or my luggage all the way through to Sydney, and when I argued with her that V promised me on the phone I’d be checked in and my luggage checked through so I wouldn’t have to worry about the short layover in LA, she finally said “Oh, yeah, I can check through your luggage.” But not me. Somehow she could check through my luggage without me. No boarding pass. So I started worrying a little, but at least didn’t have to worry about waiting for my luggage.
And then while waiting in JFK, I tried checking into V online (they don’t have online check in!), tried calling them up (got random beeping or “this number cannot be completed as dialed”), and emailed them (only got the reply “They should have been able to check your luggage all the way through!” right before I had to get on the plane).
Then on the flight to LA, we ended up sitting on the runway in JFK for 40 extra minutes before take-off, and then we get to LA 20 minutes late and they couldn’t get the walkway to come up to the door for another 20 minutes, so I was of course freaking out. I got off the plane later that the latest check-in time for my next flight (which is one hour before take-off). I literally sprinted – SPRINTED – through the terminal, and then got on the bus that takes you between terminals which was sitting stuck in traffic for another 15-20 minutes, and then sprinted through the VAustralia terminal to check in and ran up to the counter “I know I’m late!!” And the guy said, “Yeah, you are. We can’t get you on. Everyone’s checked in and they’re not accepting anybody else.” And I was like “Noooooooo!!! I just ran all this way.” And he said, “Hold on one minute.” And he went away for about 5 minutes, and then came back with another lady saying that apparently I did get checked in at some point (was it the Delta lady? My email?) and had a seat so they just had to print out my boarding pass and then I had to race through security to the gate, where they were already well into the boarding process. I made it! And then had to sit through a 14 hour flight after I’d been sweating buckets from running everywhere. But once I was safely on the flight, I was remembering back to the first time I was passing through LA on the way to Sydney and sitting there waiting around thinking “This airport is horrible and I’ve been traveling all day and have so much farther to go and don’t know if I can do it anymore! I’m so tired!” – well, this time, I didn’t have time to dwell on any of that. The adrenaline didn’t allow the tiredness to set in, and I didn’t have time to look around at how horrible the airport was or think about how long my next flight was. So, a positive?
And my luggage somehow made it too!
Anyway, so that’s the story of the stressful aspects of it, but other points to note: VAustralia is
so cool. It’s got cool lighting, it’s got good meals, it’s got a bar, in business it does full on beds that they make up for you when you ask, rather than just reclining into a bed position with a blanket. Also: on the Delta flight to LA, I was seated next to a dog. That was a first. I mean, I’ve seen people come on with their little pets in little cages, but this was a full on
big dog on a leash that was just sitting on the floor next to my feet. A service dog and fully trained, so it was very nice and well-behaved. And quite cute and fluffy.
Anyway, so I’ve now been back for almost a week, over the jet-lag, but my eyes are red and puffy from the sun so I probably look tired anyway. Let’s hope that fades soon!
