Day 01: Brisbane to Long Island

I was up fairly early after a bit of scare - I was staying at my sister’s place and had set my iPhone alarm for 5am.  I woke up at some stage and looked at the clock in Ben’s room and freaked out a little when it read 5:38am.  However a quick check of my phone quickly laid my mind at ease that it was only 3:38am.  A bit more of a doze and I was up before 5am.  We left Jos’s place around 6:20am and had a great run to the airport.  Just as we pulled up the announcement was made that check in was open for my flight.  I managed to grab an aisle seat in the middle section as the plane had a  3-3-3 configuration.    So after I cleared Immigration, it was time to pass away a couple of hours waiting for take off...

For awhile it looked hopeful that it might just be myself and another lady with a spare seat in between, but that hope was dashed before take off.  But it really wasn’t a drama.   I ate lunch (chicken and mushroom pie with mashed potato and gravy; and cheesecake) and watched two movies “Horrible Bosses” and “Black Swan” (kind of glad I didn‘t spend money to see that one at the movies) before trying to get some sleep.  I think I managed a couple of hours before watching “Bridesmaids” and “Hall Pass”. It was then time for a quick breakfast before we landed in LA.

I had no real complaints about VAustralia. The only issue I had was that the guy sitting behind me was quite tall and kept bumping my seat.  Talk about annoying. At one stage I really wanted to turn around and ask him to stop, but I didn't.

Immigration getting into the US was, not surprisingly, a much longer process than on my previous visit.  And this time, they got my fingerprints and photo (which I'm sure is just gorgeous after a 13hr flight) before it was time to collect my bag and go through customs.  After that I walked the relatively short distance from the Tom Bradley international Terminal to Terminal 5, for my Delta flight.

Here I had my first minor problem. Firstly, when I checked in, using the self check-in, I noticed that the spelling of my first name was incorrect. After asking the  Delta employee, he was like, it shouldn’t be a problem, which I was ok with, but I still couldn’t understand why it was incorrect when the VAustralia itinerary had the correct spelling. Anyway, I then proceeded to have a look at the seat selection, and noticed that instead of my flight being LA to NYC,  it was LA to Las Vegas. Now as much as I enjoyed Vegas last time I was in the States, it certainly isn’t on the itinerary this time around.

The employee that had helped me with my name issue then had a look on the system and was like "there is no record of any flight to JFK in your name". I suddenly had visions of me becoming one of those passengers from those airline TV shows who become like raving lunatics, but I remained calm and a lovely lady from Delta assisted me and found my original booking. She couldn’t explain why it had been changed and grouped with 4 others travelling to Vegas, but as long as I got to New York, I really didn't care.  She even allocated me an exit row with a window which was great.   My guess, the VAustralia website got a little overloaded on Saturday… 

I then had a fun time spending a few hours in Terminal 5 before Flight  DL1192 to JFK which arrived into New York just after 8pm.

Somewhere over middle America...

NYC at night - can you spot Central Park & Times Square?

Had I still been flying the big Q I would’ve arrived just after 5:30pm, which would‘ve so been much better, but I‘m not complaining,.  It was then into a cab to the hotel where I arrived just after 9pm.