That is what happens when you travel to the other side of the world…
I started out Saturday evening. Getting to the OKC Airport at about 5pm… flight was at 7pm to Dallas…
That flight was short… about 34 minutes flying but there is about 34 minutes between while you set on the plane….. Didn’t feel too bad at this point…
I decided to walk the distance in the moving walk-way tunnel over the highway from terminal C to D… I could walk it in less time than the milk-run tram from C to D… as it would make stops in A and B first… that walk way is one long desolate place… plenty of light at 8pm but I saw only two people up there besides me…
This was bout the middle of the hall…. I got a picture aimed the other way and it was empty as well… but all the “moving walks” were working so that was ok…
When I checked in I tried to beg for a better seat on the long flight but none of us really knew how the seats were set up… all I knew is… I was in economy. That usually means a seat barely wide enough, with not enough leg room as my knees are forced into the seat in front, and a hard cushion that after about 4 hours starts to rub MY ASS RAW. I know, my ass should have plenty of padding but it is damn old padding and no longer has the ability to withstand long periods of pressure… Anyway, they were not able to do anything with my seat assignment. The number was 29 for the row so I figured I was in the back but it was a 747 so who knew… the last one I was on, the economy started at bout row 22 (just two weeks ago).
I checked in at Dallas and they said I had premium economy and there was nothing I could do about moving up? oh? Premium? I was guessing that my near million miles on AA might have helped a little.
As we, there were 4 of us flying on the same flight together, joked about it as they all had seats in the 65 to 73 row range? I had to explain that I had no idea why I got a better seat but I did go on line a month ago and picked the best that I could from the charts… well when I got on the plane it was a total shock to me to find that I was in the first row of the “premium economy” and that seat was very nearly a business class seat on any other flight… it had a moving foot rest, would lay down almost flat (but when you did it was as hard a a rock). So I enjoyed that for the 18 hours I was on that plane…
Yes the flight from Dallas to Brisbane is supposed to be 16 hour plus a few minutes but along about the international date line… the pilot came on waking everyone up, saying we would have to stop in Noumea Island for fuel as there was bad weather in Brisbane and we might need extra if we had to circle to land… Later after we got to Perth I had to look up Noumea and found out it was New Calidonia. You know the place where McHales Navy guys were always going for R&R… Well I didn’t see anything but the little of the airport and some of the mountains around the airport. There is supposed to be some really neat places there but we were only there for fuel and no one could get off the plane. In fact it must have been a little rare for that airport to get big planes in as one of the guys at the airport came out to take pictures of us… ha!
It took a little over an hour to get the fuel, then we were off again. Got into Brisbane a little over an hour late and they said that our flight to Perth would be held for us as there was about 35 people on this plane that should be on the Perth connection. Well they didn’t give too many directions or any real assistance in getting us through the passport controls or to the “bus that was waiting on us” etc.… Once we got through passport control and had to drag our luggage with us out of the airport (they told me it was checked all the way though but I didn’t understand we had to go from the ‘international” airport to the “domestic” airport in Brisbane… that is a 10 minute bus ride…. we all got out to the bus but it was full and took off… we had to wait for about another 10 minutes for the next bus and when we got to the “domestic” airport we were too late for our Perth connection….
They were fairly nice and got us all on a flight that went to Melbourne then on to Perth but that cost us about 5 hours getting to Perth… While we were transiting from one airport to the next I noticed that the tags for Brisbane all stated “Queensland – the land of sunshine”… well it was not shining on this day… actually I should of gotten pictures during the transiting but at that point I was tired, wore down and had not thoughts about a camera… but I did get this from the plan to Melbourne out the window…
Yep, sun- shine all right…
We got into Perth, collected our bags, made our way to the outside and got a “traffic control” guy to get us a cab big enough fro 4 guys with 10 bags… it was a bit crowded but we made it to the hotel… oh they drive on the wrong side of the car and on the wrong side of the road here… but I was too tired to care… We checked in I hung up a few things for tomorrow, got some stuff charged up, and then we all went to dinner… walked all the way down to the pier and had ….. a burger… I am going to have to do better and try some of the other food here but at that point… simple was all I could see, or eat…
I didn’t even put this together till I got up this morning… just crashed once I got back from the pier… well off to work now… REX