Hello from the USA. After 25 hours we are in our hotel room, have had hot showers and have been to the local Denny’s for a steak dinner. Now we just need to get rid of the buzzing noise in our heads. Each of our 3 plane journeys was good with plenty of leg room, helpful staff and good food (except for the pretzels). Our check-in in Brisbane was scary because they weighed everything. Hand luggage could only weigh 7kgs. Some people were sent back to repack suitcases and hand luggage and one attendant was especially severe and, you guessed it, we got her. Our suitcases were only 14 kgs (instead of 23) and our hand luggage recorded 5.6kg and 7.7kg. Luckily we were allowed the extra 0.7 as she was distracted at the last minute. The amazing part was that when we boarded the internal flights in America( LAX-Salt Lake and Salt Lake – Seattle) people had huge cabin bags which were more like full size suitcases so it was hard to find room in the overhead lockers for all the cabin luggage and our 7kg lots looked very small indeed!! Still no-one was hit with flying luggage so all is well that ends well. Perhaps people are avoiding paying for checked luggage by taking it all in the cabin.
(Despite having a new, coded combination lock on his bag) Neil’s bag had been forced open when it arrived in Seattle today. We don’t think anything is missing but it is very strange. We went through customs in LA so it happened on the internal flights in America. Bad luck or bad experience??
Neil had a number of bonding sessions along the way. The guy beside us across the Pacific was on his way to pick up a lady friend (on a go-go mobile) before joining an ocean cruise in Florida. He sat next to a very cranky fellow on the way to Salt Lake City. He lost his house to his first wife, didn’t like Obama’s policies, thought his current wife was poorly paid (teacher receiving $30,000 per year) and generally felt that life was better in the old days. Neil had all the in-depth conversations!! However, he made eyes at the female beside him on the last leg to Seattle and she responded with smiles, laughs and coos. She was a cute brown-eyed 20 month old who was sitting on her mum’s knee and looking at Neil. We found out that her name was Meleta but that was as far as the conversation went. Her mum could not speak or understand English but she seemed a nice lady from South America who no doubt had no trouble with Spanish…only in America.
Tomorrow we are doing a tour of Seattle and then we need to work out how we get to the pick up point for the bus on Friday as we head to Bellingham and the cruise towards Alaska then.
Okay, Neil has collapsed and is now snoring so I think I’ll go to bed too. The head gets very fuzzy when you go this long without sleep. I want to be ready for the Seattle tour in the morning.
Great to hear that you are safely in North America and ready for the grand adventure. We noticed the same thing with the Americans and large cabin bags. We are motoring along through the Coral Sea at present weathering 5m swells so there is a bit of rocking and rolling but not on the dance floor!
ReplyDeleteCurrently sitting the monorail centre Seattle having a philly grilled sub. Yes we have seen the blue skies of Seattle.
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