And Hans was on his way going to America...
The first plane of today's 3 flights didn't leave Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne until 12.20pm so he had a bit of time there in the morning. Di cooked him a last bacon and eggs breakfast as a sort of Bon Voyage. Thanks Di... Then Hans walked to Southern Cross Station. There will be a lot of sitting today anyway.
A last cuppa at the airport while waiting...
The flight to Sydney was uneventful, as was the flight to Los Angeles after that.
That is, until the plane arrived at LAX and all passengers (or "customers" as they called them these days) were not allowed to "deplane", another new fine airline word, until after officials had come onboard.
The officials were 4 very serious looking policemen, who stopped at the guy just in front of Hans.
The guy was asked to bring his bag and come off the plane with the officials. His wife and child sat a bit further behind and they were asked to come along as well. Hans would not even speculate on what was going on there...
Immigration and customs were a breeze and even though Hans told them that he would go home in 3 weeks time, he was given a 6 months visa. Hans is clearly not customer profiled as a "usual suspect"...
Los Angeles was hot and humid and not very nice outside. Hans just had to take that mandatory LAX photo...
So after loitering around outside the airport for a while, Hans went back in and through X-ray. Hans was flagged as a "TSA Pre" on his boarding pass, whatever that means, but with the result that he could go through a lesser severe X-ray, no shoes off, no laptops out, no belts off etc. Too easy. Quicker than Sydney Airport, that's for sure.
Once inside the gates for LAX terminal 7, Hans found a Best Buy vending machine which he knew would sell SIM cards.
He purchased a SIM card pack and then spent the next half hour trying to get it to work with his iPhone 4. Inserting a nano SIM into a Micro SIM and into his old iPhone 4 was not an exercise for "older" people with poor eyesight and clumsy thick fingers. Yes, it took a while before Hans got it to work.
Hans was then getting hungry as time approached 12.30pm local time. So Hans bought himself a hamburger and a bottle of water... Almost U$20 including tax... Cough, cough...
Yes, it is an airport and the burger was pretty juicy, but $20 was a bit steep in Hans' view.
Plane number 3 for the day from LAX to SFO departed a few minutes late, but otherwise all good. A very United front there at LAX...
Hans noticed that United Airlines main feature in their inflight magazine was "Three perfect days Melbourne". Und das T-shirt Automat in Fitzroy featured on a full page...
Aerial photography from planes rarely come out well. Anyway, Hans included one picture here over presumably parts of Silicon Valley.
At SFO, with the baggage claim, Hans turned a corner and saw his bag appearing as number 4 on the conveyor belt. That was the smoothest and quickest baggage claim ever.
Then things turned sour. Hans had booked a shuttle with Marin Door to Door. Contact to be made by Hans calling them once he had his luggage. Despite 10 calls or more, the phone line was always engaged.
There were plenty of shuttle buses operating out of SFO, but Marin Door to Door was nowhere to be found. However, Marin Airporter was there. After a bit of a chat with the driver, Hans jumped on with a vague promise of getting somewhere reasonably close. Hmm...
Hans got off at a stop called Seminary Drive, a bit further north than Sausolito but not towards the Beldevere Tiberun peninsula. What to do? Where are we?
Good ol' McDonalds came to rescue. Free wifi, ipad out and result was 1.8 miles and 33 minutes away according to Google Maps. Dusk had passed and night started to set in as Hans finished the trip as he started it, a walk. Perhaps a bit nutty wandering around with backpack and rolling bag in the dark in an unknown area, but Hans got there in the end. Here is Vineet cooking up a bit of dinner for us.
And here is the other man in the house, Hunter, the world's coolest dog. And he still is.
A good meal with a bit of Penfold 8 Cabernet Shiraz and lots of chat chat chat. We did go out for another quick wander. To the local service station to get an icecream each and for Hunter to get another outing.
The very long day finished after 11pm local time, 5pm Melbourne time, as Hans finished this sentence. Now it's definitely good night.
Posted with Blogsy
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