First glimpse of LA

So that’s LA or at least a small piece of it.

Glimpse of Los Angeles out the aircraft window.

Glimpse of Los Angeles out the aircraft window.

 13+ hours later here we are, very tired and still a long way to go.  Well, I can say although I didn’t sleep the food was good, the service was good and the plane felt pretty comfortable but I would have liked a bit more leg room.  We actually made an enquiry about how much it would cost to upgrade.  The response was A$900 (USD$900).  Hmmm, I’ll think small!

Special Note: LA Customs and Immigration check points.  We made a boo boo.  When disembarking from the aircraft we collected all our rubbish which we were going to deposit in the nearest trash can.  I thought that our fellow travellers were very untidy as they had left a variety of food stuffs including lots of uneaten oranges etc.  Guess what . . there are NO TRASH CANS between the plane and Customs!  What you take off the plane, even if it is rubbish, you MUST declare it!  We had previously completed our immigration and declaration form stating that we had NO food items but because we had food scraps in our rubbish . . we had to declare it.  That meant completing another declaration for both of us.  The queues at LA Customs are really long and guess what another 747 arrived from Australia about five minutes after us.  But wait there’s more . . to save time I thought that I’d go to the toilet after the Customs check and before the baggage search area . . guess what ????? there are NO TOILETS in between those areas.  AAAARRRGGGH!

 

Law Enforcement Corruption & Abuse Welcome to America.

What happened to 2000 elderly British cruiseship passengers when their ship landed in Los Angeles after touring the world… legal protection for non-citizens Theoretically, there are legal protections for people who visit the US. Theoretically. But the theory goes out the window if one of the little ICE dictators decides they don’t like you. "Rule of Law? What’s that? You’re a non-citizen on US soil. You don’t have no stinking rights." And that’s how they play it every day all over the Land of the Free. The story of the cruise ship full of elderly Brits abused at the hands of ICE in LA was unusual – because it was reported. Apparently elderly people aren’t subjected to collective punishment back in the UK. Backward place really. They need to get with the program. Seriously, how many hundreds of billions – trillions? – of dollars have these federal shit heads cost this country over the last ten years in discouraging travel, discouraging trade, loss of good will. (They were behaving this way long before 9/11 by the way.) And for what? Greater security? Bullshit. The country was raped and pillaged in broad daylight by a handful of banks causing exponentially more economic damage than ten real armies could inflict on the US and no one’s even been brought to task, let alone indicted. But by God, if a handful of cranky elderly people object to the way they’re treated by the steroid pumped morons brigade, we’re going to hold up everyone on the boat with them – all 2000 – for <b>…</b>

Source: YouTube

In the beginning . .

Before I start I’d just like to acknowledge the people at Expedia who gave us much needed help in a very professional manner.  Well done!

Here we go from Brisbane, Australia to New York or Bust!

Well, here we are at the Nerang railway station at 5:15 am after having nearly zero sleep last night, worrying if our taxi would pick us up on time .. would we remember to turn the water off .. or turn the hot water off .. or lock the house up etc etc.  All was good 🙂 (we hoped).  I held my trusty Samsung S750 camera out at arm’s length pointed and clicked.  At that time in the morning the flash had a terrible blinding effect.  Great, all we need to do now is step off the platform into the path of a city bound train.

 

Carl & Janine at the Nerang Railway Station

Carl & Janine at the Nerang Railway Station 5:15 am It's way too early!

 

Next stop Brisbane Airport

After battling through airport security we managed to get a good seat near the departure gate.  Something that I would later learn to be a real bonus.  Okay, so I looked out the window to take a snap shot of the plane that was to carry all the people and all their luggage, and there it was .. IT’S TOO SMALL  ARRRGGGGH!  That thing has to fly non-stop to LA, 17,000 miles, for 13+ hours!

 

V Australia's 777 Airbus

V Australia's 777 Airbus on tarmac Brisbane Airport BNE. It's not big enough!

 

Stay tuned . .