6 Movies And A 2 Hour Nap

December 19, 2013

Sydney - LA: 13 hours
LA layover : 2 hours
LA - Detroit: 4 hours
Detroit layover: 2 1/2 hours
Detroit - Moline: 1 1/2 hours

This trip never fails to completely exhaust me. It has been decided that going this direction is much more exhausting than going the other direction. I feel like it's harder on me each time, and my mother agreed that going home from Sydney was harder than the trip there. Why this is so I'm not entirely sure. I have a few theories but they might be entirely wrong. This time my flight took off at 12:20. I ran into a friend in the security line who was also heading to the states for the holidays (Miami though so he's probably enjoying much better weather.) Security never ceases to frustrate me. Usually not because of the seemingly unnecessary precautions they are required to take (luckily in Australia you don't have to take your shoes off), but because of people's complete disregard of said precautions. One lady held up the line because she didn't remove her laptop from her bag. She was yelling at them about how she has a plane to catch and she's running late and meanwhile is holding up everyone else who also has a plane to catch. Lady, if you had taken 2 seconds to remove your laptop from the bag you wouldn't be having this problem. Anywho, I made it through security easily and settled in at my gate.

My chariot waiting ready at the gate

For this trip I had a window seat. When I checked the night before the middle seat was empty and there was a person in the aisle seat. Due to the fact that there happened to be a snow storm in LA the previous day, causing multiple flights from Sydney to LA to be delayed and canceled, the middle seat ended up being filled by someone who's flight the day before had been canceled. Yay me... I couldn't sleep much on the flight, considering we took off at 12:20 and my bodies internal clock at that time wasn't used to sleeping until after 3am. This resulted in quite a long and frustrating flight. Also, there's a certain routine for these flights. I've traveled with two different airlines and know the others work in the same fashion. No matter which way you're going you board, about an hour in to the flight they serve your first meal. Around 2-3 hours into the flight they shut off all the lights and it's time to sleep. NOT time to leave your window open with the sun coming in. The entire back section of the plane only one window is open and it happens to be the guy right in front of me. YAY! Overall I struggled to sleep. I watched movie after movie hoping it would come but probably only slept a couple hours.

My layover in LA was quick, got off, went through customs and security and got on the next plane about 20 minutes later, just enough time to eat some breakfast. LA to Detroit was the worst flight. It was very cramped and the guy in front of me kept trying to put his seat down but my knees were stopping the seat, and no pushing really hard continuously back on his seat did not solve his problem.

Detroit was nice. I sat down at the bar at Chili's, enjoyed a nice burger and a couple of beers and ended up meeting various personalities from Drum Corps. One of them the front ensemble tech for the Cadets. If I weren't living here I would have been kissing some major ***.

Detroit to Moline was beautiful. It was dark so there was no possible irritating sunlight. I have 2 seats all to myself. I slept the whole trip. Woke up just before landing freaking out because I'd had a dream that I landed and my family wasn't there to get me and I ended up finding them having dinner at a restaurant that slightly resembled Sancho's (which I haven't eaten at in ages). It was relieving to find them waiting for me just like last time.

Finally home. What a relief. Don't worry... I did take a few pictures to make this post worth it.