The Hell Flight

Dearest Readers,

I would like to take the opportunity to tell you all to never fly as direct as possible from Melbourne to Fort Lauderdale. It is not worth the damage to your physical or mental health. I mean sure, the total flying time logs in at only 20 hours (pretty much or slightly less than the time it takes to get to London), but the legs and the moving against time is a killer. Of course, not everyone will suffer as I have suffered - my travelling companion Antonia believed herself to be fine. Of course, she also crashed to bed despite a band playing pop music outside her room last night.

My Melb - LA flight left Melb at 10:30am and flew 14 hours straight to LA. At various points, I would check the flight details and shudder when it said that there were X hours left to fly. Having said that, when we actually touched down at LAX, I didn't feel that bad. Nor was my experience there that unpleasant. By arriving at 7:30am local time, I think we managed to beat most of the international flights in so I didn't have to wait too long before getting fingerprinted and giving a mugshot to Homeland security.

Our next leg to Dallas was booked to leave at 10am, and since we managed to get processed in under an hour, there was plenty of time to brush teeth and wait around to be allowed onto the plane. This is where things started to go pear-shaped. The flight to Dallas took 3 hours and five minutes but it just seemed to go twice as long. This is despite me kinda sleeping. And finishing three sudoku. And reading the entire in flight magazine. By the time we got to Dallas, I was fairly frazzled.

Our transit time in Dallas was three hours and there were some pretty interesting experiences had here. Firstly, because they couldn't issue us boarding passes for our flight to Fort Lauderdale in Melb, we had to re-check in...but they never made it clear as to whether we had to collect our luggage and check them in too. One empty luggage carousel later, we had our answer. And since we had to check in again, we got security checked again.

That brings me to this side topic about security. I'm aware that large cities conduct shoe checks ever since Richard Reid, the attempted shoe-bomber. What I have never heard of before is the *gas/blow test*. Basically what happens is while your bags and shoes are being checked, you walk into a clear cubicle, stand where the footprints are, and then you get gas blasted at you. You can not leave the cubicle until the light goes green. I remember walking into the cubicle, looking at it and thinking *what the hell is this?!* before being blasted by the gas. I walked out a bit stunned later and started putting my shoes back on and watched Antonia get tested...I fully believe that her stunned look mirrored my own. Further analysis of the machine while people were tested has me convinced that it was a giant GLC machine because I noticed a small screen that would show peaks just as the cubicle door would open.

Anyway, after proving to security that I didn;t have explosive residue on my clothes, we stumbled to Maccas where I had a *Big n Tasty w/ cheese* burger meal. It was actually a McFeast but damn it hit the spot. I have decided that long haul flights are like getting drunk - you get dehydrated and can only be solved by drinking lots of water or eating a fatty meal. At the gate to get onto our flight, it was pretty easy to spot who was a conference delegate and who was returning home. The stats speak for themself - apparently 14 wheelchairs were required to get some of our flightmates onto the plane.

The 2 hour 50 minute flight again felt three times as long. It probably wasn't helped by me falling asleep during the safety demonstration so when I woke up, I couldn't tell how long we'd been flying for. The pilot also apologised a lot for turbulence that I couldn't feel. *shrug* I also began a countdown from the time he said we'd be landing in 45 minutes. Longest 45 minutes of my life!

Regardless, by the time I hit Fort Lauderdale yesterday, I'd been awake for 26 hours (I don't count my plane naps because they did nothing!) despite the clock telling me it was less than 12 hours ago since I'd gotten on the plane in Melb. The pleasures of being able to get out of my clothes, take a warm shower, and sleep lying down could not erase the psychological damage endured or the dark circles under my eyes today.

Learn from my adventure. You have been warned.
Mallymoodle