The Day that Wasn’t

This post got its title from the fact that we crossed the International Date Line. That meant that we arrived in LAX five hours before we left.

We didn’t want to leave NZ, and NZ apparently didn’t want to let go of us. Our flight boarded about an hour and a half late and we didn’t leave the gate until two hours late. After waiting in the queue (yes, we were still in NZ so it was a queue) on the taxiway we started takeoff. About halfway down the runway the pilot aborted the takeoff and announced that a warning light had come on. Apparently it was telling the pilot that a door was ajar. We taxied back to the gate and sat in our seats for an extra hour while they fixed the problem and topped of our fuel. We were finally on our way. The flight was pretty uneventful after that. While standing in the back of the plane I was joined by a nice older lady who started to talk to me. It would have been fine except that the combination of her poor hearing, the noise from the plane, and her ears that probably hadn’t equalized with the internal pressure meant that she yelled when she spoke. The conversation went something like this: “PRETTY CROWDED, ISN’T IT?” Yes, ma’am, not much room. “IT CERTAINLY IS A LONG FLIGHT.” Yes, changing hemispheres still isn’t a piece of cake. I moved away to a different section of the plane not because I was antisocial but simply because I wanted the people around us to be able to sleep.

Because of the delay in Auckland we missed our connecting flight to Houston. Qantas rebooked us on a flight the following day, but William and I both wanted to get to Houston that night if at all possible. We went to the Qantas desk in LAX to see if they could change our booking. The lady started to look up flights to Houston and asked me, “What airlines fly to Houston?” Uh, I don’t know, it’s only the fourth largest city in the U.S. Pick an airline and you’re probably right. It’s not as if you work in the airline industry. Needless to say, that didn’t end too well.

Qantas put us up overnight in the Hilton and we were joined by a lot of other people from Qantas flights. At the hotel restaurant you could pretty accurately pick out who belonged there and who had been stranded by Qantas. When we got to our flight the next day they had overbooked it by eleven seats, so this time we voluntarily got bumped. We ended up in the Westin this time. After hostels and holiday parks we weren’t going to complain.

While trooping in and out of the airport I saw a Ferrari with a loud aftermarket exhaust system. Who puts an aftermarket exhaust system on a Ferrari? Seriously.