The First Epistle
LAX....the Air New Zealand Lounge....Sunday July 3rd....
Happy Birthday America!
It is said that a journey begins with the first step....I will rework the cliche and say that a round the world journey begins with a 50 minute flight on a Beech prop to Kansas City! Actually, a pleasant plane and despite it being one of the heaviest travel days of the year, exactly 5 passengers. I have packed about 20 books so nestled in at the city's extremely odd airport and read the time away. MCI is vastly overbuilt, it has three distinct terminals and is today a surprisingly minor airport with little jazzy services, lots of those commuter jets (which I rather like) and I suppose mud on its face. They built the place halfway from downtown to Winnipeg too and I can just hear the porker oinking as I look around. Among the oddities: one clears security for a given airline.....finding, once through, no toilets, no food services, nothing. To get a snack I am fussed at by supremely underworked (on a busy day) cretins....yes, the next cliche: with iqs smaller than their chest/bust sizes. United to Denver was packed and unpleasant and Denver Airport is a bit of a horror although I was able to race on the moving sidewalks from gate, let's say 1, to gate, let's say 90 in a record 20 minutes and make my plane....Lo and behold, the flight to LAX was terrific: an Asian steward who knew WHAT service was, only 4 seats in a large jet in first class, a reasonable dinner with a cold terikayi salmon on a bed of pretty lettuce.....good attention...astonishingly pretty views right over Aspen then Telluride...then that always surprising nothingness of the arid SW, the Grand Canyon someplace off to the south. One starts arriving LAX as you know about thirty minutes before you get here....at 500 miles an hour.....and LAX is if anything a bit worse for wear.
Embassy Suites was VERY accommodating....giving me a 500 PM check out at no cost...I had missed the manager "reception" (meaning popov vodka and miller lite) but did chow down on their bountiful and quite nasty breakfast: croissants (surely they will be good in French Polynesia?) with the consistency of Wonder Bread, sausages which surely did not come from an animal cloven or otherwise, an omelet in the traditional ring pillow mold. I don't think anyone in America really understands omlets. But they couldn't ruin a banana. I like Embassy suites a lot: it is pleasurable to have a living room to close off from the hall in order to make a bedroom essentially soundproof....the amenities are very decent....and again the staff is almost always affable and helpful.
Just arrived at the lounge...my 1015 PM plane for Papeete is scheduled for 130 AM because the copilot is very ill and they had to rustle up another who was in Hawaii.....It is not SUCH a tragedy actually: Tahiti is 3 hours earlier than LAX so 130 AM will be 1030 PM local time, a pleasant bedtime....and arrival in PPT will be at a respectable 730 AM which no doubt will please the transfer agent from Tahiti Nui! I am not sure if I will have email capabilities at Le Royal Tahitien...but will try...and promise that my lines from there should be vastly less prosaic than these....
Fred
Happy Birthday America!
It is said that a journey begins with the first step....I will rework the cliche and say that a round the world journey begins with a 50 minute flight on a Beech prop to Kansas City! Actually, a pleasant plane and despite it being one of the heaviest travel days of the year, exactly 5 passengers. I have packed about 20 books so nestled in at the city's extremely odd airport and read the time away. MCI is vastly overbuilt, it has three distinct terminals and is today a surprisingly minor airport with little jazzy services, lots of those commuter jets (which I rather like) and I suppose mud on its face. They built the place halfway from downtown to Winnipeg too and I can just hear the porker oinking as I look around. Among the oddities: one clears security for a given airline.....finding, once through, no toilets, no food services, nothing. To get a snack I am fussed at by supremely underworked (on a busy day) cretins....yes, the next cliche: with iqs smaller than their chest/bust sizes. United to Denver was packed and unpleasant and Denver Airport is a bit of a horror although I was able to race on the moving sidewalks from gate, let's say 1, to gate, let's say 90 in a record 20 minutes and make my plane....Lo and behold, the flight to LAX was terrific: an Asian steward who knew WHAT service was, only 4 seats in a large jet in first class, a reasonable dinner with a cold terikayi salmon on a bed of pretty lettuce.....good attention...astonishingly pretty views right over Aspen then Telluride...then that always surprising nothingness of the arid SW, the Grand Canyon someplace off to the south. One starts arriving LAX as you know about thirty minutes before you get here....at 500 miles an hour.....and LAX is if anything a bit worse for wear.
Embassy Suites was VERY accommodating....giving me a 500 PM check out at no cost...I had missed the manager "reception" (meaning popov vodka and miller lite) but did chow down on their bountiful and quite nasty breakfast: croissants (surely they will be good in French Polynesia?) with the consistency of Wonder Bread, sausages which surely did not come from an animal cloven or otherwise, an omelet in the traditional ring pillow mold. I don't think anyone in America really understands omlets. But they couldn't ruin a banana. I like Embassy suites a lot: it is pleasurable to have a living room to close off from the hall in order to make a bedroom essentially soundproof....the amenities are very decent....and again the staff is almost always affable and helpful.
Just arrived at the lounge...my 1015 PM plane for Papeete is scheduled for 130 AM because the copilot is very ill and they had to rustle up another who was in Hawaii.....It is not SUCH a tragedy actually: Tahiti is 3 hours earlier than LAX so 130 AM will be 1030 PM local time, a pleasant bedtime....and arrival in PPT will be at a respectable 730 AM which no doubt will please the transfer agent from Tahiti Nui! I am not sure if I will have email capabilities at Le Royal Tahitien...but will try...and promise that my lines from there should be vastly less prosaic than these....
Fred
posted by ultimatetraveler at 6:51 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home