Tuesday 25th October 2011

It was the usual pre departure panic – where’s my eticket?  Why can’t I check in online?  Do I need a copy of my ESTA (to enter the USA) – but it said on the website I didn’t need it to check in!

Thanks to Mum I got a lift to the airport.  My bags were heavier than what I was hoping and managed to check in ok without any dramas.  I requested a window seat for all the legs of my flights and the lady was good enough to get me good seats.

After utilising the free email at the airport, I went through all the ridiculous screening just to get onto the plane.  It was one of the new Qantas A380’s.  It was nice, but not as nice as the Emirates ones.  The plane was fairly empty so everyone got a row to themselves.  During the 13hrs 40min flight I watched four movies – ‘Hannah’ which wasn’t as good as what I thought it would be, ‘Source Code’ which again wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, ‘Bridesmaids’ which was terrible and ‘Something Borrowed’, another pretty crap movie.  I tried to sleep but without much luck.  I was unfortunate enough to have two annoying, fat men in the row next to me who drank Bundy the whole way and started to become quite obnoxious.  They were both watching their own movies which must have been comedies and were laughing so loud that no one could sleep!  Thankfully they both passed out about 2hrs before landing.

Once in LA airport I cleared immigration, picked up my bag and then preceded to the domestic terminal to check in for my next flight.  When did domestic terminals become so boring?  There was nothing to do and I had 6 ½hrs there so I found a spot on the floor and went to sleep.  We boarded the plane only to then sit on the tarmac for 1 ½hrs because there was something wrong with the plane.  They then had to take people off because they would have missed their connecting flight in Dallas and then all these other people got on.  It was very strange.  Finally we got on our way.  I managed to get some sleep out of the 3hrs of flying time.  We arrived in Dallas at the same time as I was supposed to be boarding my next flight but luckily there were a few of us on that flight so they held the plane for us.  It took about 25min to get from the terminal where the plane landed to the next departing terminal.  Once on the plane, I managed to get some more sleep (flight time 2hrs 35min).

Is it still the 25^th?  Arrived in Miami around 0030.  Because of the time, everything was closed in the airport including the transport around the terminals.  It took me a good hour to walk to the where the car hire pick up point was.  I got the car (finally, I got the car I ordered – a small car…every time I have hired a car in the USA, they have decided to ‘upgrade’ me for free and I’ve ended up with monster cars that don’t fit in standard size car parks and chew through fuel) and then decided to sleep in the car in the car park because I wasn’t too sure where I was going to drive to at that time in the morning; although the lady in the car hire place said it was illegal to sleep in your car?!? But they did not have a problem with it as long as the police did not catch me.