Final post from USA trip

Notes from 12/1/12

Arrived home exhausted yesterday, after spending the day in Auckland with one of my daughters and her family.  (Not exhausted because of the daughter but because of the lengthy flight from San Francisco.)

One of Liz's friends, Keri (she'd come to NZ in October last year with Liz) took Jon Beck and us to a place called Barbacoa.  It’s a bit of an Arabian nights approach in décor, with chunks of art on the walls and strange seating arrangements, and dimly lit.  The food was superb, made even more enjoyable by the fact that Keri wanted to pay for the meal.  I had an Idaho trout (a half trout, I think, in fact) cooked on cedar wood – there were no bones (as specified in the menu) and the flesh just fell away and was wonderfully sweet.  It was served on a some kind of rice which the menu online doesn't identify: this had a bitter tang to it, and was a bit overpowering for the fish, we felt (Celia had a bite or two, of course).    Keri then took us on a bit of a tour around the North End of the city (Boise, in this case, which, by the way is from the French word for trees; hence the city’s name: City of Trees).  She showed us the student campus and the older houses that were being done up and the grass hill on which the house of a wealthy industrialist stands – supposedly the grass on this hill is mown once a week.  Crikey!

Afterwards Celia and I sorted out our bags and got ready for our departure the next morning.  Cindy dropped us off at the airport where we had to repack our suitcases when we went to book in.  Even though the combined total was under the proper weight, one was over and one was under.  In Dunedin they hadn’t worried about this; just put them through.  But the woman in Boise was insistent that it had to be done properly, so we fiddled around with the cases until it was.  These sorts of things really get me frazzled, as do the security places in the US airports where you have to take off shoes and belts and hold your handkerchieves above your head (as happened in LA) and generally make yourself look a prat.  The customs people in LA were very pleasant – indeed they have a charter on their booths telling us they will be pleasant – but the security people take their power rather too seriously I think.  The whole security thing is a farce anyway; it smacks of paranoia, and of course now that it’s in place can’t be got rid of without thousands of people losing their jobs.  In NZ, the security people are much more friendly – at Auckland last night we’d bought a milkshake and a long roll when we realised we probably needed to be on the other side of security.  We stuffed the rolls in one of our bags and I said to the woman, can we take these drinks through?  Yup, no problem.  They were the same at the customs side in Auckland – in LA they’d fussed about a couple of packets of seeds that they didn’t want us to take in; in Auckland we told them we had some lollies for the kids and such and they just put us through without worry.

San Francisco is a different airport altogether to LAX – as we’d been told it would be.  It has life and warmth and visual interest, and is generally much more friendly.  You have to wonder why LAX is so different. 

We got onto the plane for Auckland on time at 7 pm, but then sat for an hour while they dealt with someone who’d become sick and had to be taken off again – and until they found that person’s luggage amongst the hundreds of items.  In spite of that we got to NZ at the time we should have: 5 am.  We were booked in a three-seater; we’d asked if we could change to a two-seater but the women on the counter taking all the boarding passes from people who’d booked through a different airline (they were changing them to AirNZ boarding passes, which seemed like doubling handling) said the plane was full and they couldn’t do anything.  The plane wasn’t full, by any means, and there were spare seats scattered around – including beside us!  So we had three seats between the two of us, which was good.  

The trip from SF was very long.  It’s only an hour longer than the reverse version, but seemed interminable.  I read a lot more – even in the wee hours of the morning – but that didn’t help much.  I couldn’t get comfortable for long, whichever way I sat, so sleep was very intermittant.  I’d picked up a book from a shop in the airport – Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist – which had been on sale for under $5US.  It turned out to be a treat – a novel in which the narrator, a poet, discusses the need for rhyme, and a host of other things.  I’d never heard of the author, and might see what else he’s written.  This is his tenth novel, I think.   It may be that it suited my taste because of its subject matter, more than anything, but the writing is a delight, full of wonderful phrases, and lots of self-deprecating humour.  It was as well I had this book, as the Michael Connelly thrillers we’d bought for Kindle were all short stories, and Nathan Berma’s Bringing Heaven down to Earth proved to be rather thin.  I got through some of it, but wasn’t inspired.  I’d finished Alan Jacobs’ The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction a day or so before we left.

Anyway, finally into Auckland at 5 am, and after Customs and Security yet again we got out into the main area and disposed of our bags into AirNZ’s care once again.  Libby turned up around six, with Israel, and we headed out to her place.   Zonked.  It was great to be somewhere where you could put your head down if you felt like it, and I did for a while.  We spent the day out, going by train to Newmarket (which was as far as it was going while they did some repairs) getting the bus into Britomart, and then the ferry across to Devonport.  All for free on our Gold Cards. The day was beautiful, and we paddled in the water.  It started to rain on the way back but not enough to bother anyone, and then got very muggy once they rain stopped.  It was a bit of a relief to get to the airport!  And home my daughter Abby picked us up, with her son, Tom ...and with our dog, Marley, who was over the moon at seeing Celia again.  He sat on her lap the whole way, though he did manage to  give me a couple of minutes attention at one point.....

Travelling to Boise, Idaho

Travelling to Boise in Idaho for my son's wedding.  Notes written on 2nd Jan relating to 1st Jan. 

We spent some thirty hours getting from our house to the my daughter-in-law-to-be's house in Boise.  That was leaving our house at around 9.45 am on our Sunday, and arriving in Boise at around 7.30 at night their time.  There were breaks between our arrival in Auckland and leaving again, and the same at the Los Angeles end.  This added considerably to the length of the trip.   I’d picked up a cold the night below we left, and was feeling too tired to do anything much, so in a way I was quite relaxed about the trip, more than I would have been otherwise.   It meant on one hand I read no more than half a dozen Kindle pages on the two first plane trips, and didn’t even read in the airports, and on the other felt quite comfortable about the great length of time the trip involved.   I only began to feel alive again by the time we got to Los Angeles (and this was after a night of not really sleeping well on the plane - though at least I did sleep; Celia didn’t much at all), and that was when I started reading again, finishing off The Eyre Affair (a novel recommended to me by a friend).  My cold seemed more like really bad hay fever, in the end, and I got something to offset that at a pharmacy in the Auckland airport, and along with vitamin C tablets and Panadene, kept me more alive than otherwise.

We didn't have to worry about our bags anywhere, after Dunedin, which was good (only the easy little transfer from one room to another at Los Angeles); the only stuff we were carrying were a largish black holdall with some clothes and odds and ends, and Celia’s backpack with various items including the laptop, and her purse, which carried everything else.   My older son had told us that there was a quiet spot along by Gates 5-10 at Auckland, and so after having some lunch and going through security, we stayed there for the afternoon, having the occasional snooze laid out full-length on the seat.   It was fairly muggy in Auckland, and earlier on we’d stayed outside for a bit, but it drizzled occasionally, and the place we’d chosen was obviously the smoker’s ’hut’, so we didn't stay there long.  

Our plane for Los Angeles left around 7, and we’d been able to get a two-seater, right towards the back.  This was good because we didn’t want to be sorting out with another person all the way (or two, if we were in a four-seater - there are no five-seaters on these planes), and meant we could spread ourselves a bit in terms of luggage.   However, we’d hardly got off the ground before the young married couple in front of us pushed their seats right back as far as they would go - this meant not only were we more cramped but we couldn’t easily watch the little movie screens.  We pushed our own seats back, but being the last row we couldn’t push too far back.   I asked the girl if she would mind moving the seat back a little more forward again, and she did, but her husband wasn’t nearly so obliging, and for much of the trip, including during the night, he kept it pushed right back.  We talked to the hostess early in the piece but she wasn’t in the mood for confrontation it seemed, and didn’t do anything, even though Celia said it was hard on her back being forced to sit that way.  Next morning, when breakfast was being served, the (very) old steward (he was older than me, I think!), without much persuasion got the guy to put his seat up straight - the guy’s comment was, What, further?  However, we both survived.  Celia said afterwards the man had very long legs, and would have been cramped too, but…

The staff began to serve the evening meal very soon after we took off, but in spite of that we didn’t get our meal until around 9.30 by which time there was no choice - one type of meal had been used up completely.  The older steward commented that at least at breakfast we’d be first on the list, but even then he only meant that we’d be in the first serving, rather than being first altogether.  

There was a huge choice of movies and tv programs, but the noise in the plane made it hard to hear some dialogue easily, so some movies were more accessible than others.  I started to watch Puss in Boots, but apart from it being a bit inane, it was set at night for quite a while at the beginning and didn’t show up well.  So I gave up on that and watched the oldie, The Night of the Hunter.  Directed by Charles Laughton it was a rather weak story layered with pseudo-symbolism and some hysteria.   The boy who was one of the main characters (Billy Chapin) wasn't too bad, but his little sister (Sally Jane Bruce) was weak.   Robert Mitchum played the supposed preacher who went round marrying women for their money and then murdering them, and Lillian Gish the old lady who eventually took the children in.  Shelley Winters was in it for about two-thirds and had a rather underwritten role - she became Mitchum’s latest victim.  The film also seemed to reach its climax and then develop a whole new section, making it seem more longwinded than it probably was.   Of course I had a meal in the middle so that didn‘t help it to be more cohesive.  Roger Ebert gives it a rave review, calling it 'one of the greatest of all American films,' which seems a bit over the top for the otherwise sound Ebert. 

I tried watching Jane Eyre as well, but the sound was just a blur, so I gave up, and watched, out of the corner of my eye, and without sound, Drive, with Ryan Gosling.   It looked very slow, but well made - and increasingly violent.  Celia switched it off before it finished. 

As we were starting to descend my ears began to ache something awful - to do with the cold, no doubt.  They wouldn’t clear and it was extremely painful.  The same thing happened, to a lesser extent, coming down into Boise.  

Los Angeles airport was an unpleasant place: lacking in humanity somehow, very undecorated, huge and awkwardly laid out - we landed at Gate one and had to go to Gate seven, which was a good hike around the ‘horseshoe’ that forms the airport.   We could have got a shuttle, but it seemed reasonable to walk, even though it was fairly warm - hot in fact, considering it‘s winter here.  We decided to go up to the third floor to check out the departures section, thinking there would be restaurants, cafes etc.  Nope, nothing but the security section, and an enormous queue, many of them standing out on a bridge that led into the security section, in the heat.  Incidentally, the queue at Auckland into the plane to Los Angeles took forever - we sat waiting to join it and waited and waited.  It never came to an end, and it began to look as though it never would before the flight was supposed to take off.  They were trying to process both Los Angeles and San Francisco flights, but they didn’t have a computer system, for some reason, and everything was being done manually.   It seemed impossible to believe that that many people would be getting on one plane. 

I had a bit of a meltdown at the LA security: they were being rather over-the-top, and when he told me not only to take off my money belt, but my trouser belt, and my handkerchiefs out of the pocket, I had had it.  I didn’t go off at the security people but to Celia, who told me to pull myself together. Anyway, we got past security and discovered that on the other side of security there were some places, like two Starbucks for example, and a couple of bars, and a newsagents, but that was almost it.   Had some rather expensive lunches sealed up in plastic boxes, and got coffees (after discovering that the girl behind the bar and I were both deaf - she couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t understand her - partly cultural linguistics and partly blocked ears from the plane).   Celia had a sleep, and, finally feeling better, I did some reading.  The plane to Boise was a fifty-seater, not too noisy, and served by one hostess who rattled through all the safety precautions at such speed that if you didn’t know the instructions from having heard them dozens of other times, you’d have had no idea what she was talking about. 

Finally arrived in Boise and met by my son and his fiancée.   Relief! 

October 09 holiday - first post

I've just introduced this latest holiday on my main blog- it gives a bit of background as to why we were on holiday in the first place.

We both flew to Wellington on Wednesday the 21st - on separate planes. This had come about because when we were booking online a few months ago, we had to book separately, because my wife was doing a multi-stop and I was only doing a return trip. Consequently, Air NZ's online system couldn't somehow see the point of putting us both on the same outward flight - or perhaps it was trying to give us the cheapest options - and we took 'em!

We actually asked the guy at the desk if we could be put on the same flight, but he'd had something unpleasant for breakfast, apparently, and didn't even give the idea the time of day. (My wife later told me her flight was half empty.) I put my suitcase through, and my wife put her rucksack through (one of those we carted around Europe in 2007) and we assumed we'd meet up with them later. The rucksack had the items of food we'd brought (we were going to be staying in Youth Hostels) along with the toiletries and some clothing, and a few other odds and ends.

She duly got on her plane - the one which would stop in Christchurch, and then arrive almost at the same time as mine, which left an hour later (!) - and I sat down and waited until my own flight left. Officially it took off late - by about ten minutes - but I still managed to arrive only minutes later than my wife, who was standing by the baggage carrel when I got there - waiting for her knapsack to arrive.

And then we both waited. My suitcase came through, but no knapsack. Finally a young man from the baggage section came over to see if everything was all right. No knapsack. Did lots of tapping on his keyboard, couldn't find why it had gone awol. Assured us that it would probably be on the next flight out of Christchurch, and if so, he'd have it sent round to the Youth Hostel.

We went to get the hire car; they came and picked us up and took us to their base, and then it was off into the Wellington traffic, using my wife's recently acquired iPhone with its GPS application.

This one got the name Frankie (his predecessor in England had been Malvina), and in general he was pretty good at guiding us around the country. I'll talk about the Hostel in another post, and finish off what happened about the knapsack.

I rang the baggage people back later in the afternoon as there'd still been no sign of the pack - and no word from them. Of course, I got someone else and we had to start all over again. Still no sign. Finally, about 10 pm that night they rang: still no sign.

We had had to get some more food in (fortunately the Hostel is across the road from a New World supermarket), and we had to get some more toiletries as well. Next day still no news, and finally, late on the second night in Wellington, we got a call: the bag had gone to Auckland and then onto Napier!

They were merrily chirping on about getting it sent back to Wellington when I informed them that we were leaving for Napier in the morning, and would appreciate that they didn't start sending it around the country again. So finally we met up with our food and toiletries and odds and ends in Napier when we arrived - at the youth hostel there. The boiled eggs weren't too healthy, but the cheese survived, as did the margarine and the rest of the items.

The joys of travelling. [Photos of this trip are on a smart card in Auckland at the moment; my wife took them with her when we split after our return trip to Wellington, so they may get added in later. The photo here was taken by Stephanie Anne (flickr.com) and shows a bed/room similar to the ones we had in the Wellington YHA.]

Checking out prices online

Just having some fun playing with the HotelReservations.com site. I began by looking at Hotel Reservations on their own. You can put in a place name and the site will skip off and find you a choice of hotels (and other facilities) within seconds. Even though USA was on the page, I put Auckland in, and it was quite happy to find Auckland, NZ. Some of the room prices were a bit out of my reach, but that’s okay - at this point I don’t actually want to stay in Auckland, even though my daughter has moved there recently, and taken her man and their two children (our grandchildren) with her.
But we have considered going on the Continent for two or three weeks, say in October, so I put Florence in as a search. I hadn’t realised there were five places called Florence in the USA, one in Alabama, one in Arizona, one in Kentucky, one in Oregon, and one in SC. It’ll come to me in a minute which state that is! Ah, South Carolina?
In spite of the wealth of US Florences, the first Florence to come up was Italy‘s, which is where I was intending to look. So that was a plus. Clever site.
The site does vacation rentals as well as hotels (and flights, cars, package deals), so I checked out NZ for that, too. Up came Auckland, Queenstown, Wellington, Christchurch. Pretty good, though again things are on the pricey side. Maybe this site doesn’t look at more economic possibilities?
Thought I might as well have a look at the flights option, as this is something we’ve been checking out quite a bit online. And it’s usually not easy. However, apart from checking which of the several London airports I wanted to fly from, it found a possible flight very quickly. Though at US$10,683.40, it might be a bit beyond our budget! I went back to check that I hadn’t put business class in the options, but the only option was economy/coach. Obviously there might be a cheaper flight available: £5,339.80 or NZ$14,621.95 for one return flight to a place that’s not that far away from here, seems just a bit over the top.
However, one interesting thing that did turn up in the flight options, was this: people 62 years old and over can obviously go for a better price. Finally my age gives me some benefits! (Actually, if I want to travel by bus from Norwich to a large number of destinations, I can go free, because of my age.)

Skyping

Well, Skype is proving its worth, after all the hassle of getting organised and learning how to do it in the first place. We’ve talked to our kids a number of times, and have even downloaded the program onto my brother-in-law’s computer, so we can talk from there. It’s been a wonderful way to keep in touch with the family, and we’ve even managed a conference call type of thing, with people in Dunedin and people in Auckland on the line at the same time. Amazing technology – and it’s free!

Thetford

We went to Thetford today, which apparently used to be the chief town in Norfolk. It isn’t any more, and though it has the usual churches built in 1100 and such, it didn’t strike either of us as very interesting a town. Maybe we didn’t see enough of it. However we did find out that the Dad’s Army series was partly filmed there, that Thomas Paine the great political pamphleteer was born there, and that the place was burnt to the ground by some Viking whose name I’ve now forgotten.

We bought ourselves a GPS system today, (which was why we were in Thetford in the first place), one that’s a bit more user-friendly and that we can also use when we go back to New Zealand. It’ll help in those awful cities - Christchurch and Auckland - where we can never find our way around.

Thetford also turned out to be full of Eastern Europeans and Portuguese (amongst others), people who are there to work at jobs that Brits are no longer doing, but who, by all accounts, may not be very well off. I’m only hearing about it secondhand, so I don’t know the details, but the number of foreign-speaking people walking the streets of Thetford was rather high.

The Trip Begins

The day started off with a heavy frost, but fortunately the roads were clear, and we had no real trouble getting out to the airport. The plane went off on time, after we'd said our last lot of goodbyes. A couple of guys who saw us hugging a son and a daughter and a daughter-in-law and a grandson said they wished they had someone to hug them goodbye. I offered, but they seemed to think that was going a bit too far.

By this time the day was beautiful and we had a smooth trip. There was some concern on the part of the hostesses early in the piece about a petrol smell that was obvious around the area we were sitting in. It turned out that a guy accompanying someone who looked like a wrestler (his name was Big Boy, apparently, and one of the hostesses said she was a fan of his), had some petrol on his shoes, and had to go and wash them. Celia noticed that the hostesses had a partly-finished crossword on the bottom of their drinks trolley, and said she had our crossword machine with her. They told us that they were trying to finish the crossword before the pilots, so we offered to have a go, and in due course got it done - after some making some false starts.

Libby picked us up from the airport after we'd left our two big bags at a storage place in the International section, and we drove out to her new flat - they only moved in last weekend. It's a two storey unit, one of about twenty identical attached ones, and it's very nice: lovely big open plan living room/kitchen, three bedrooms upstairs, three toilets (one downstairs in the laundry, one in the bathroom, and one in the en suite next door to that!). There's a garage, and an outside area at the front, but no grass. Although along the back of the units there's a long stretch of (very wet) grass, and a path leading down to the marina. Hundreds of boats moored, almost as far as the eye can see. Beside the pier at the end of the path there were dozens of little sprat-like fish leaping up above the water level and vanishing again. Further along there was a dredge digging great slabs of mud out of the water, and further along still was a curious device that took boats out of dry dock in the boat-builder's yard, on a kind of sling slung from a crane-like machine that slid along a track on wheels. Very cunning.

About four Libby took us to our friend's place, where we stayed the night. She managed to get a bit lost - although she's doing very well in the Auckland traffic - and while her trip there took nearly an hour, her trip home took about ten minutes!

Snow

Snow.

Just to let us know that it really is winter we're escaping from (on Monday) it's been snowing since last night. First thing this morning, the ground was covered, but it's cleared a lot and I was able to drive to town comfortably for a last lunch with Ben, (last before we go overseas - not the last ever). However, the rain and the wind are bitterly cold, and even standing for three minutes waiting for Celia after lunch was very chilly round the head.
We're going to have to wear winter gear as we fly out of Dunedin, and somehow metamorphose into summer gear when we get to Seoul. Might be a bit of a trick!
Celia's plan is to leave our heavy bags in Auckland airport overnight, when we stay there on Monday, and just use our backpacks for everything essential. We'll try and do the same thing in Seoul. The suitcases we have aren't too bag to cart round, but by the time you've got a backpack on and you're holding something else, carting a suitcase, even on wheels, is a bit of an issue.
Meanwhile, we're relaxing at my daughter's house, where I've commandeered the computer.