A Blast From The Past
I'm doing the worst thing I could possibly do during a lockdown... re-reading our travel diary from 2012, when L-SP & I drove from California to New York over a few weeks & about 26 States. I never put this one up on DW/LJ, so in the spirit of ChaosVizier, who never lets time elapsed get in the way of a good travelogue, here's Day 1:
Sept 11. Tuesday - Sydney to Los Angeles to San Francisco. The Longest Day Ever
At ridiculously early o’clock, our friend Ray picked us up & drove us to the International Terminal, assuring Julia on the way that “you’ll be fine” with the prospect of a 13-14 hour flight. Words are cold comfort. We arrived at the Departures Terminal before any of the various check-ins were open, so found a couple of seats away from the few other bleary travellers & tried to, if not sleep, then just power-down for a bit... No such luck - within 3 minutes a young British girl sat down at the other end of our row, with her phone welded to her ear as she gave a loud, running commentary on... well, pretty much everything from boyfriends (hers & everyone else's), parties, hangovers, more parties & finally family (hers & everyone else's). I lost count very early on of how many times she used the word 'like' in a sentence. Even pronounced 'loike' in typical Essex dialect, it was still an assault on half-awake & pre-coffee ears. Finally the check-ins opened & joy of joys, Essex girl is flying to LA on the same plane as us!! Checking in, customs, duty -free (Cognac! Single Malt Scotch!!) & breakfast were all no problem, then boarding, looking around the cabin to make sure 'Loike' Girl was nowhere in earshot (she wasn't... maybe she scored an upgrade to Business - my sympathies to them!). After not much of a wait, it was doors secured, chocks away, safety demonstration time & off we took at 10am
Apart from the occasional turbulence, the flight was 13 hours of uneventfulness, though the sunset above the Western Pacific was spectacular in the air. Both of us spent most of the time plugged into the in-flight entertainment system. Julia - 'Snow White & the Huntsman', 'Dark Shadows', music selection & a few hours sleep over the darkened Pacific. Me - ‘Prometheus’, ‘MIB3’, ‘Sherlock Holmes 2’ & about forty minutes of dozing/dreaming in between the Date Line & the Equator
The sun was rising as we approached the USA West Coast, landing in LA at about 6.30am local time on the same day we left Australia, only four hours earlier… Two long Customs lines later & explanations to a couple of Border Security Officials what Mint Slice biscuits are (they were both disappointed by the lack of Tim Tams in our bags... which showed Australians have bribed their way into the USA before!!), it was time to find our connecting flight to SF. Here the fun/stress - depending on which of us you ask - began. Our flight was not listed, a helpful airport official suggested we were now flying with American Airlines instead of United, our main luggage was dispatched down a conveyor with other AA bags & we went in search of one of two Domestic terminals. As per Murphy’s Law, the first one (American Airlines) was the wrong one & the United terminal was waaaay down the other end of the complex. Unlike most other airport patrons, we walked to it, quickly discovering why most airport patrons don't... it really was a looong waaay, especially for 2 jet-lagged foreigners
A quick check-in, (& shoeless full body scan, we were flying on Sept 11 after all) as we were running out of time, found our gate & boarded a much smaller plane & waited for takeoff… & waited… & waited. Various cabin announcements put the blame on waiting for extra fuel, delays in SF & waiting for a tow out to the runway. Drinks were made available & we had our first American Coke experience... Diet Coke tastes the same, but the American Coke Zero was bloody awful, at least to our Australian tastebuds. It'll be Diet for the rest of our trip then - nice to settle that early! Eventually we were off on a one hour flight north. One bounce & we landed in San Francisco - the real starting point of the journey
So far, we hadn’t seen much of the US other than its generic airports & lines of traffic on freeways… which always look best in the dark & from a thousand feet in the air, not stuck in one. The taxi ride to our accommodation was when I started to feel like we had arrived. Familiar place names, those idiosyncratic terrace houses along the streets which I’d seen in movies, various landmarks familiar from Dirty Harry films, pick-up trucks & not as many big ol’ gas-guzzling cars as I’d expected/hoped… but enough to know we weren’t in Sydney any more
Arriving at our AirB'n'B lodgings for most of the coming week, the first problem which presented was that we couldn’t really check into the room until 3pm (it was only 11am), so we ditched our main luggage there & went in search of a main street & our first real American meal. Appropriately it turned out to be a cheeseburger with chilli fries & a chocolate thick/milkshake. Debate about tipping suggested $5 would be about right & as nobody yelled at us when we left, I suppose it was. A fruitless search for somewhere to buy new SIM cards, a walk along Geary St in the Richmond district, with the first of many expected mistakes regarding my Australian accent - apparently I sound English - then back to the room to find it still hadn’t been prepared, but by this stage both of us were dragging our knuckles from lack of sleep, so we made our bed & laid on it for a couple of hours - dead to the world.
A shower, a message to ex-pat & good friend Chris P about dinner & a visit from our hosts to unblock the toilet (Civilisation’s thin veneer first cracks if the plumbing doesn't work) & deliver a bathmat & some advice on how to deal with the shortcomings of America’s domestic sewerage system
Dinner with Chris at a place called Gigi’s Sotto Mare Oysteria. Having picked us up in his relatively new Fiat 500 reissue, he demonstrated the advantages of a small car by finding a parking spot within short walking distance. We’d booked, but that didn’t stop us waiting about fifteen minutes for our table. Not to worry, a free glass of Sangiovese absolves a great many sins… & we had two. The place is laid out like your typical American Diner, with a counter running down one side in front of the kitchen, then tables on the other with a well-travelled aisle between them. The walls were covered in fishing, sporting & dining memorabilia, stuffed & mounted fish & a rather incongruous poster advertising Guinness - which they didn’t serve, dammit! Clam chowder for starters, then sautéed scallops for me, mussels & pipis for Julia & grilled Sand Dabs for Chris. The meals arrived on intimidatingly large plates, but in the absence of fries, wedges or any other form of potato, the meal was satisfying without inducing feelings of late-term pregnancy. And more Sangiovese please...
A drive around & across town with me navigating & ensuring at least two wrong turns before Chris reclaimed his iPhone, brought us to a Donuteria which went a long way to dispelling the Krispy Kreme-fed opinion that Americans can’t make good donuts. They can. Thus reassured, we drove to the top of what locals call Nob Hill - where all the city’s grand houses sit high overlooking the incoming fog, then, donuts eaten, a trip to the supermarket for basic essentials, before returning to barracks tired, but well-fed & happy
Feel free to not read this & the subsequent forthcoming entries - it's really just an exercise in nostalgia & an excuse to post some photos
Sept 11. Tuesday - Sydney to Los Angeles to San Francisco. The Longest Day Ever
At ridiculously early o’clock, our friend Ray picked us up & drove us to the International Terminal, assuring Julia on the way that “you’ll be fine” with the prospect of a 13-14 hour flight. Words are cold comfort. We arrived at the Departures Terminal before any of the various check-ins were open, so found a couple of seats away from the few other bleary travellers & tried to, if not sleep, then just power-down for a bit... No such luck - within 3 minutes a young British girl sat down at the other end of our row, with her phone welded to her ear as she gave a loud, running commentary on... well, pretty much everything from boyfriends (hers & everyone else's), parties, hangovers, more parties & finally family (hers & everyone else's). I lost count very early on of how many times she used the word 'like' in a sentence. Even pronounced 'loike' in typical Essex dialect, it was still an assault on half-awake & pre-coffee ears. Finally the check-ins opened & joy of joys, Essex girl is flying to LA on the same plane as us!! Checking in, customs, duty -free (Cognac! Single Malt Scotch!!) & breakfast were all no problem, then boarding, looking around the cabin to make sure 'Loike' Girl was nowhere in earshot (she wasn't... maybe she scored an upgrade to Business - my sympathies to them!). After not much of a wait, it was doors secured, chocks away, safety demonstration time & off we took at 10am
Apart from the occasional turbulence, the flight was 13 hours of uneventfulness, though the sunset above the Western Pacific was spectacular in the air. Both of us spent most of the time plugged into the in-flight entertainment system. Julia - 'Snow White & the Huntsman', 'Dark Shadows', music selection & a few hours sleep over the darkened Pacific. Me - ‘Prometheus’, ‘MIB3’, ‘Sherlock Holmes 2’ & about forty minutes of dozing/dreaming in between the Date Line & the Equator
The sun was rising as we approached the USA West Coast, landing in LA at about 6.30am local time on the same day we left Australia, only four hours earlier… Two long Customs lines later & explanations to a couple of Border Security Officials what Mint Slice biscuits are (they were both disappointed by the lack of Tim Tams in our bags... which showed Australians have bribed their way into the USA before!!), it was time to find our connecting flight to SF. Here the fun/stress - depending on which of us you ask - began. Our flight was not listed, a helpful airport official suggested we were now flying with American Airlines instead of United, our main luggage was dispatched down a conveyor with other AA bags & we went in search of one of two Domestic terminals. As per Murphy’s Law, the first one (American Airlines) was the wrong one & the United terminal was waaaay down the other end of the complex. Unlike most other airport patrons, we walked to it, quickly discovering why most airport patrons don't... it really was a looong waaay, especially for 2 jet-lagged foreigners
A quick check-in, (& shoeless full body scan, we were flying on Sept 11 after all) as we were running out of time, found our gate & boarded a much smaller plane & waited for takeoff… & waited… & waited. Various cabin announcements put the blame on waiting for extra fuel, delays in SF & waiting for a tow out to the runway. Drinks were made available & we had our first American Coke experience... Diet Coke tastes the same, but the American Coke Zero was bloody awful, at least to our Australian tastebuds. It'll be Diet for the rest of our trip then - nice to settle that early! Eventually we were off on a one hour flight north. One bounce & we landed in San Francisco - the real starting point of the journey
So far, we hadn’t seen much of the US other than its generic airports & lines of traffic on freeways… which always look best in the dark & from a thousand feet in the air, not stuck in one. The taxi ride to our accommodation was when I started to feel like we had arrived. Familiar place names, those idiosyncratic terrace houses along the streets which I’d seen in movies, various landmarks familiar from Dirty Harry films, pick-up trucks & not as many big ol’ gas-guzzling cars as I’d expected/hoped… but enough to know we weren’t in Sydney any more
Arriving at our AirB'n'B lodgings for most of the coming week, the first problem which presented was that we couldn’t really check into the room until 3pm (it was only 11am), so we ditched our main luggage there & went in search of a main street & our first real American meal. Appropriately it turned out to be a cheeseburger with chilli fries & a chocolate thick/milkshake. Debate about tipping suggested $5 would be about right & as nobody yelled at us when we left, I suppose it was. A fruitless search for somewhere to buy new SIM cards, a walk along Geary St in the Richmond district, with the first of many expected mistakes regarding my Australian accent - apparently I sound English - then back to the room to find it still hadn’t been prepared, but by this stage both of us were dragging our knuckles from lack of sleep, so we made our bed & laid on it for a couple of hours - dead to the world.
A shower, a message to ex-pat & good friend Chris P about dinner & a visit from our hosts to unblock the toilet (Civilisation’s thin veneer first cracks if the plumbing doesn't work) & deliver a bathmat & some advice on how to deal with the shortcomings of America’s domestic sewerage system
Dinner with Chris at a place called Gigi’s Sotto Mare Oysteria. Having picked us up in his relatively new Fiat 500 reissue, he demonstrated the advantages of a small car by finding a parking spot within short walking distance. We’d booked, but that didn’t stop us waiting about fifteen minutes for our table. Not to worry, a free glass of Sangiovese absolves a great many sins… & we had two. The place is laid out like your typical American Diner, with a counter running down one side in front of the kitchen, then tables on the other with a well-travelled aisle between them. The walls were covered in fishing, sporting & dining memorabilia, stuffed & mounted fish & a rather incongruous poster advertising Guinness - which they didn’t serve, dammit! Clam chowder for starters, then sautéed scallops for me, mussels & pipis for Julia & grilled Sand Dabs for Chris. The meals arrived on intimidatingly large plates, but in the absence of fries, wedges or any other form of potato, the meal was satisfying without inducing feelings of late-term pregnancy. And more Sangiovese please...
A drive around & across town with me navigating & ensuring at least two wrong turns before Chris reclaimed his iPhone, brought us to a Donuteria which went a long way to dispelling the Krispy Kreme-fed opinion that Americans can’t make good donuts. They can. Thus reassured, we drove to the top of what locals call Nob Hill - where all the city’s grand houses sit high overlooking the incoming fog, then, donuts eaten, a trip to the supermarket for basic essentials, before returning to barracks tired, but well-fed & happy
Feel free to not read this & the subsequent forthcoming entries - it's really just an exercise in nostalgia & an excuse to post some photos