A 3am rise for a shower and shave before Jase and I were picked up by Gateway Limousines (a nice easy arrangement with the business only 2 houses away) and whisked in style to the Domestic Terminal.
After receiving our requested upgrades to Business Class we were able to use the Priority Check-in and quickly moved to security where my new wallet caused the security scanner to go off three times! Embarrassed!!! At least the staff in the upper class line didn't treat me like a complete moron!
Up the stairs and for me a first time entry to the Qantas Lounge where we had coffee and toast, while using the free wifi.... The Lounge was not overly crowded and it was very easy to get something to eat and drink - the perks of Qantas Club and First and Business class travel are many and make travel very tolerable! Using FF points for upgrades and not flights will be my new strategy from now on.
Before we knew it, our flight was called for boarding and it was onto the very old 767 and into our spacious seats - not the flashiest cabin but way better than "cattle class", and so nice to be addressed by name!
The flight was a good one - by the time I had read the paper, had an enjoyable (for airline food anyway) breakfast and started to type this blog we were descending into Sydney!
As we had checked our luggage right through to Los Angeles, we only had to catch the shuttle bus to the International Terminal and pass through Customs, all of which was achieved very quickly and smoothly.
We made our way to the Qantas Business Lounge and were very relieved to find that our Premium Economy tickets gave us entry, so we sat down with a cool drink and made calls to home and then put our T-Mobile SIM cards in our phones ready for use in the USA. Jase had purchased the SIM cards online and then activated them with a monthly plan that will give us in limited calls, texts and data in the USA as well as unlimited texts and unlimited landline calls back to Australia. Calls to Australian mobiles are at about 33 cents per minute, which is very cheap! Jase is one smooth operator when it comes to all things tech!
We only had about half an hour to wait until our flight boarded and when it was called we made our way to the gate and our AirBus A380. Our seats were on the upper level and Jase and I had seats in centre section of the 2-3-2 layout - we had been allocated seats a distance apart, but the helpful lady in the Qantas Lounge re-allocated us seats alongside each other.
The aircraft seemed pretty well chockers, but as we waited for the doors to close (enjoying a glass of bubbly) no one had turned up for the seat next to me! Yay! It remained empty and once we were airborne I quickly shifted across to give us a vacant seat between us and heap more space! You can be lucky sometimes!
The Premium Economy seats are nice and spacious and being a newish aircraft the great touch screen video system worked perfectly and I settled back with a Chivas Regal and dry to watch "The Words" starring Brad Cooper (from The Hangover) which turned out to be very enjoyable, especially the couple of scotches! A bloke could have made a real mess of himself, but with driving duty awaiting me in LA a couple was the limit!
Dinner was served about 2 hours into the flight and the pork and vegetables I had was very nice - Jase enjoyed his chicken and rice as well!
I watched another movie after dinner but it was a bit boring and with my eyes starting to get very sleepy I wrapped up in a blanket, inserted my ear plugs and tried to sleep! But for all the mornings early start and a long day, proper sleep evaded me and so I just lay there and dozed for about 5 hours - not much else to do!!! We were disturbed a few times by some pretty rough turbulence but mostly things were very quiet and I think for the first time ever on a long haul flight there wasn't one crying baby! Amazing!
It didn't seem to be that long before breakfast was served and then we were touching down in the good old US of A... It took about an hour to clear customs and get our bags and then we caught a shuttle bus to the Alamo Car Rental depot to collect our rental car.
We had ordered a Chevy Tahoe which is a big 7 seater SUV, but when we saw it we realised that the extra row of seats took up all the luggage space and we needed room for 4 cases. The lady changed it to a Chev Traverse which is a bit smaller but has only 2 rows of seats!
So we fired up the Traverse and the GPS and hit the streets of Los Angeles to find our hotel, only to find that it was about a five minute drive and we were there in no time at all. Never mind there will plenty more time to test my driving prowess!
We were way too early for the usual 3pm check in but the very pleasant receptionist found us two rooms and before we knew it we were in our nice big rooms complete with king bed and big flat screen TV! The Hilton Garden Inn LAX is oldish, but the rooms are very clean, comfortable, well equiped and seriously good value.
After a shower and a change of clothes, we asked where the nearest shopping mall was so we could get a few necessities, and were promptly ushered into the free shuttle bus and taken to Manhattan Beach Shopping Village where we got some beers ($6.70 a six pack for Buds and Miller - hello???) and had a bit of lunch.
A kilometre walk up Sepulveda Boulevarde got us to an AT&T shop where we got SIM cards set up for our iPads, and then we walked back to the shopping mall and rang the hotel to ask for the bus to come back and get us.... Some service eh? And we only had to tip the driver a couple of bucks!
We sat down with a beer and gave Katie and Mumsie a Skype and then decided to have a nap before having some dinner - but guess what! I woke up at 7.30pm, had a shower and then promptly went back to bed and slept until 7.30am! And apparently Jase did the same! Still, after being awake for about 32 hours we were in serious need of some kip!
So the World Ag Expo trip has begun and if today was an example everything will be fine and dandy!