Astute readers will recall my raining against the SYSTEM a few days ago. Did you know there is a SYSTEM that goes with longhaul air travel as well? I think it was borrowed from poultry farmers - and I don't mean the free range ones!
QF007 - an auspicious number - left Sydney at 1.50pm. Within 90 minutes we had been fed. Presumably because we were flying into the night, they dimmed the lights by about 8pm Sydney time and we all dutifully pretended to go to sleep so that they could "wake" us a couple of hours before Dallas for breakfast - a meal that was early for Sydney time, and late for Dallas.
Once the plane disgorged us, it was into the dreaded US Immigration process. I have to say that Dallas is immensely better than LA, and the immigration guy was just on the pleasant side of neutral. The same could not be said for those guardians of the free world who staff the scanners at the other side. I imagine the staff briefing goes something like this : Smiling or being polite just encourages them, and you know they just want to blow up something. So ... words of one syllable if you must speak, and always in a short bark. Stop, Come on, Not there, Go .... .
I had a two hour window which would have been just comfortable had the Boston flight left on time. It was a good 90 minutes from landing to arriving at the Boston gate (via an internal monorail), to find the plane had a mechanical issue. We left an hour late. I must confess that travelling on an American Airlines flight into Boston so close to the 10th anniversary of 9/11 had a certain spooky quality about it. People here are accutely aware of the anniversary. There was a lovely piece in today's Globe which profiled the experience of people in Boston airport who had been touched by the flight that left from there - including one flight attendant who had rung in sick on the day. I'm not sure how you would cope with not only surviving, but with knowing that someone else had died in your place.
Jerry Starratt - God love him - met me at the airport. It is lovely to be met. He dropped me to my digs for the time here (until the 15th) which is a charming B and B called "A Village B and B" - an 1894 timber home in the suburb of Newton Highlands, close to both Jerry and Boston College. The picture I took of the whole building didn't come out, so you'll have to make do with the front door for now. It's in the album if you can find it. I decided to use today to get my body clock back into sync, and have reconnoitred the area - gorgeous timber houses like the one I'm staying in now. A couple of other pics attached in the album (and one here in the blog). You can check it out here.
While in town I came upon the nearest thing to a grocery place which is a combination newsagent, deli, bottle shop and --- wait for it - Persian rug store. The owner is an Iranian who seems to have created a niche in the trendy little township for his wares. When I had picked up some of his prepackaged Persian spread, he gave me a tasting of the many others he had in stock, including his home made. He would never get a job in Airport security!