Back in the USA

One of the major areas of personal growth from this past year has been my willingness to embrace my nationality. Most people know I have two passports and at the start of this trip I would go out of my way to waive my Aussie one around (just ask my parents). In part this was because I didn't feel American or identify as such - though to be perfectly honest, I didn't feel Aussie either, it was just where my home had been for the past 10 years. But, let's be honest, it's also to downplay the immediate stereotype that might come to mind, that Ugly American-ness that people look for on meeting someone from the US...

Since about June, though, in response to the question "Where are you from?" (which is asked by anyone from a fellow backpacker striking up a conversation in a bar to a rickshaw driver trying to suss out what you'll pay for a ride) I would say 'the States'* and leave it at that, rather than launch into this explanation about how I'm not really American you see...**

*Of course no American would actually respond with 'the States' because no one inside the States refers to it as such. They would say 'American' or 'the US', and as I travelled through India I started to work out that this is how Indians know it ("The States? Oh, U-S-A! O-ba-ma!"). Or Americans just cut to the chase and say 'Los Angeles'...because everyone knows where that is. Though, of course, the same can't be said for Iowa...

**This is largely thanks to a realisation somewhere around Greece that, actually, people have certain unfavourable impressions of Bazza and Shazza from Northern Queensland too...

Anyway so I've been looking forward to applying this newfound acceptance and embracing of my heritage on my diversion to the US for Christmas. Look how much I've changed, Mom!

And then I get on United Airlines.

Every time I fly this bloody company I vow NEVER AGAIN. And each time I end up back on it because, of course, it'll be $500 cheaper than a decent airline. Any Aussie that complains about Qantas should fly the Sydney-LAX route and then be thankful for such a classy national airline.

First there is the shi*te entertainment system. Every time I board I think "this is going to be it!" - United will have upgraded their aircraft and put TELEVISIONS in the BACK of the SEATS for a TWELVE HOUR FLIGHT where I can select my OWN entertainment option! ...And every time I am immediately disappointed. Somehow every other airline on the planet - and by now I've flown a fair percentage of them - can manage this simple feature. Members of United's own Star Alliances can handle it. Dinky South African bloody airlines can do it. I just want to select my own goddamn movie and not be stuck with a Grey's Anatomy episode that's about 1.5 seasons ahead of when I last watched television followed by some cartoon about monsters. I am on what appears to be a brand new aircraft - so you can't even blame the age of the plane and bad luck.

...Though, I'll say this for them, the TVs that are there are new and at least not 50% snow, with the bottom half the picture on the top of the screen, or making Izzy and Cristina look like blueberries due to colour distortion, or requiring you to turn up the volume so far and blast out the sound within a 6 foot radius so you can understand the dialogue. I do concede this is an improvement on past experiences.

Then there is the meal. My meal was a respectable variety of watery iceberg lettuce, stale overprocessed bread roll designed to be able to survive Kim Jong Il's next testing, Teriyaki chicken with the skin on (!), gluggy rice stuck to the plastic plate, and 1.5 limp green beans cut to appear to be 3 beans...All this to be expected and lucky I got sushi before the flight in the Tokyo airport. But this meal threw me for a loop because it included Thousand Island freakin' dressing. Seriously? You're kidding me, right? Who has actually ever requested Thousand Island dressing for their salads - anywhere - since 1963? Thousand Island dressing's only place on this earth is spread thinly on toasted rye bread adjacent sauerkraut and corned beef. Why not a nice lemon vinaigrette, or even that American staple Ranch? Perhaps they should cut to the chase and hand out sachets of ketchup to top on the iceberg lettuce,...it'd be like prawn cocktail without the prawns.

Oh, and the midnight snack? 2 minute goddamn noodles during which the attendants decide to shout across to the previously sleeping (or at least dozing) passengers 'HOT WATER???'

Which of course brings me to the granddaddy of them all, the flight attendants. Look, I don't expect my flight attendants to be sex kittens, a la most of the Asian airlines whose ads seem to suggest that business class customers get free sexual favours with every 50,000 miles flown. I don't care if they're 50 years old or 25, 300 pounds or 115 (though it *would* be nice if their asses and their carts didn't bump my elbow every time they walked past).. But do they have to be so incredibly crabby, feral, and just...crass? Can't United afford a bit of charm school to polish off the vocabulary and presence? Even the gay men are b*itchy (and not in a funny, Thai lady-boy way) and humourless. During the time when most people are supposed to be sleeping they thought it necessary to 1) wake me up to gesture the bowl of 2 minute noodles at me 2) Shouting "BEVERAGE?" across the aisles (I have a sleeping mask on damn it!) amidst completely unprofessionally gossiping loudly about how much someone has had to drink in 26G. Then there is the ridiculous, overly formal and sometimes made up languages ("it would be our pleasure to serve you your choice of refreshing beverages" or...god help me... "please ensure you have all your belongings when you de-plane". DEPLANE IS NOT A WORD. ONE DOES NOT PLANE. THE SAME AS ONE DOES NOT CAR OR DE-CAR, AND ONE DOES NOT TRAIN OR DE-TRAIN.). The way they throw the food around, take drink orders "whaddya want-ta drink hon?" "howabout a turkey sam-which?"...it all makes me want to bang my head against the seat in front of me.

Probably what drives me most crazy is that this poor, unclassy service just serves to reinforce the world's stereotypes about Americans as clueless buffoons. So to cope with this stress mid-flight, I embark upon my passive aggressiveness campaign in which I do things like order white tea despite knowing very well that this is going to confuse them ("we only have green or black" - every other English speaking country in the world calls black tea with milk 'a white tea' in the context of a place that's only going to have 1, 2 options at most. I know this isn't 31 flavours of tea here).

OK, yeah, it does absolutely nothing but it makes me feel culturally superior, ok?

At the end of the day I'm not sure if a moderately improved meal, self-select entertainment, and flight attendants who can wear an effortless, genuine smile is worth $500. In fact I'm sure it's not - which of course is why United gets away with it and American consumers let them. It's just disappointing that it's such a negative first impression for travellers to the US, and a stressful reminder of the lowest-common-denomonator for the US citizens out there. So obviously I have to suck it up and/or up the anxiety meds when flying to brace myself for my top 5 pet peeves about the US, which are, FYI:

1. Tipping

2. Pennies

3. Lack of metric system

4. Over-processed & over-packaged foods

5. Sarah Palin

Ooh, look, we're flying over Alaska right now - I can see Russia and the extent of Palin's foreign policy experience!