Travelogue – exploding toothpaste

I’m home.
Both flights today were “uneventful” (the way I like them – no delays, no storms, just routine flying). But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any drama on the way home.

I was up at 5:15 Sydney time and showered, packed, and out of the hotel by 6:50. The hotel is about halfway between two subway stations. I used the Town Hall station for most of the week because I could go through the glamorous Queen Victoria Building. It was beautiful and a bit warmer (though the building doesn’t have doors). An underground hall lined with shops connected directly to the station.

This morning, with big suitcase, the QVB elevator, which is at the far end of the building, wasn’t working. So I had to come about ¾ of the way back to get the escalator. And I just missed the subway to the airport, with the next not due for 11 minutes. By the time this train got to the airport it was crammed with people with big suitcases.

I had forgotten to put my tube of toothpaste into my checked bag (Aussie in-country flight security is much more lax than for international flights). So my security check was delayed while they searched my carryon, confiscated my toothpaste, then did another scan of the bag. In the process a few of my remaining Aussie coins fell through the rollers that move the bags along. Once extracted I donated them, put them in a collection place for worldwide charities.

I finished one book the day before so started a new one on the flight. A fresh book for a 13 hour flight was a good idea. Alas, the book was boring. I had bought it because it was an Australian classic and funny. It didn’t seem at all funny to me.

I took advantage of the entertainment system and watched Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, a 1994 Australian classic of gay camp. Two gay men and a transgender woman are hired to do a drag show in Alice Springs for a few weeks. The movie is about their travels from Sydney by way of the used bus they bought. Which, of course, breaks down in the desert. It won several awards for those drag costumes, including an Oscar, and Terence Stamp, who plays transgender Bernadette, also won several awards.

After serving a meal the cabin lights were turned off, suggesting we might want to sleep (we were going through night, though leaving Sydney at 10:00 Thursday morning and arriving in Los Angeles at 6:00 Thursday morning). But it was difficult to sleep having had a full night’s sleep just a few hours before.

I also watched Pleasantville, a 1998 movie starring Toby Maguire and Reese Witherspoon as teenage brother and sister who are transported into his favorite black & white TV show of life in 1958. As each character is nudged out of being simply pleasant and into some emotional depth they are portrayed in color. It’s a pretty neat story.

I succeeded at sleeping for a while. But middle seats aren’t all that comfortable.

Back to the entertainment system to listen to some music. But it was now playing in only one channel. And after telling it to play an album then trying to find out how many tracks remained I managed to freeze the system.

Back to the boring book, which I started skimming and finished before we landed.

It was a long flight.

I had a comfortable layover in Los Angeles and remembered to swap books before re-checking my big suitcase after customs. During that layover I ate lunch and bought a salad for the flight.

The flight from Los Angeles flew directly over Las Vegas, north of the Grand Canyon (I think I got a photo of the west end), and across the tip of Lake Michigan. I slept across eastern Colorado and all of Nebraska and Iowa.

An early landing in Detroit where a friend gave me a ride home. Then I ate the salad.