I’m on the plane for the second time today in what will be the longest of three plane legs to get to New York, USA.

It was an early morning departure with my alarm going off at 0515 hours.  Just enough time to stumble out of bed, change, pack the last few things like toiletries into my bag and get in the car to go to the airport.  The city was fog bound.  Just what we needed.  What with strike action by the Qantas Technicians causing flight delays we really didn’t need the weather to chime in and help with fog as well.

The radio cheerfully announced that it was 0 degrees.  I really didn’t need them to tell me that I knew it was cold.  There was that moment as we travelled that fog bound road that I breathed a sigh of relief.  One moment we couldn’t see more than 5m from the car clearly.  The next the fog was gone and there was the airport in a patch of clear ground and sky with a ring of fog surrounding it.

There was the usual stuff at the airport. The one that sticks in my mind was one lady that was running with her bag saying ‘Get out of my way’ as she barged past managing to hit me with her bag while she was at it.  Why the heck can’t people be on time to airports?  Its not a hard concept.  Still we went through all the formalities and ended up in the Qantas Club Lounge.  For wonder of wonders our plane departed on time.

We arrived in Sydney without incident and transferred to the International Terminal making our way to the Qantas Club Lounge once more.  It had quite a few people in it.  An understatement.  It was packed.  Although the reason was made clear when an announcement was made regarding further delays in several flights, a few chuckles and groans could be heard across the lounge.  Once more we were lucky however since our plane managed to depart on time.

So here I am.  Its 4 hours into the flight.  The laughter and chatter has died down.  People are trying to sleep even though its only 1430 hours our time.  Others are using computer, reading watching the video on demand system or writing.  I was reading up until a few moments ago then I finished my book.  Sigh.  Only 8 hours and 55 minutes to LA....

We had to go through Immigration and Customs on arrival in LA.  That turns out to be somewhat of a circus.  Not the cueing and passing slowly through the various checkpoints part.  That happens everywhere.  The Americans do not seem to have a concept of what ‘In Transit’ actually means.  They insisted that we were still in transit and that once clear of customs our bags would go straight back onto the plane that we wouldn’t have to recheck them etc.  Fine.  That part worked except they then proceeded to push us out into the Departures Hall where we had to jostle and make our way from one side to the other upstairs cue once more along with every other tom dick and harry at the airport and go through all the security check in bullshit yet again.

We got through all that with very little time to spare before we had to board our plane once more to continue on our way to New York.

Lil and her brother picked us up at the airport and drove us to lil’s place.  We just sat and chatted for some time and drank our first cosmo - Lou’s first attempt at making one then headed into Manhattan where we spent the night at a roof top party.  It was a lot of fun with a spectacular view over the river and that side of Manhattan.  The city lit up as night fell and when we all quietened down we could hear the beat of the drums from the Bon Jovi concert in Central Park.

What a way to spend my first night, at a Roof Top party in Manhattan, New York City!