Prior to leaving on my journey I
was explaining too many people which exact route I would be taking on my path
to Sydney and every time I would mention that I would be taking a bit of a
layover at LAX. At this point everyone would stop me to express their utter
discomfort and disgust they experienced during their time at LAX. Having only
been there once in my life I had not really found LAX to be so horrible, though
I may have only been twelve and left all the discomfort for my father to
experience. This time though I got to truly experience the filth and confusion
that is Los Angeles International Airport. Upon arriving you are immediately greeted
by a lovely sprinkle from the leaking air conditioner which leads you into the
maze of sweaty smelly people who have no idea where they might be going because
there are only twenty signs in this state sized cess pool and of those twenty
you might be lucky if it leads you remotely near where you need to go instead
of a wall the states they working on this route. When you have finally made it
the outside of your terminal, there is literally a billion of them, the lovely
air of makes it way quickly into your nose, a lovely blend of tobacco smoke and
urine… Now usually at any other major airport you could grab a shuttle to your
next terminal and not have to find your way but at LAX they think you would
much rather experience mixture of scents they have to provide. That is there
are shuttles but they are mostly for people practising in the occult and
fortune tellers because like the rest of LAX…. Yep you guessed it no signs. Now
on a normal day in just travelling through, out or in this seems like a
horrible place to send your evening but I was fortunate to run in to problems
with my baggage, thanks to the lovely people at Alaska Airlines for that. So I found
myself running from one terminal to another and trying to decipher the hieroglyphics
that have now replaced words in America. To say the least not very pleased with
the whole occasion. Luckily enough I had the pleasure to fly business class for
my journey to Sydney which thanks to the wonderful team at Quantas Airlines was
the best flying experience I have had to date(serious this time). This being my
first time flying business class I was treated to a different group of
passengers. The man beside me had just finished a three month journey across
America where he attended various Aerospace conferences. Apparently he works
for some company that is currently trying to reinvent long distance travel by
bring the craft into orbit and let it orbit to just before your destination and
then begin re-entry. According to him this would make any long distance journey
no more than an hour long. Real cool dude all together he had a fancy briefcase
and really looked the part of business class traveler. I on the other hand
looked like I might have a rich parent that was sending me across the world. We
were also treated to a cool little experience as it was our pilot’s last flight
before retiring after 36 years and more than 26000 hours in the air, so as we
taxied into the airport we got the salute from the fire trucks as they covered us
in litre after litre of water. But as the saying goes all good things come to
an end and thus I was greeted by a lovely message from my airline informing me
that my bag had been called in for a talk with Mickey Mouse and was thus now
catching a flight the next day. So I now sit here at the hostel after having
spent a hundred and fifty dollars to look and smell like an acceptable human
being until my bag is done his business with the big man in the castle. Lucky
the city is beautiful and it being summer and makes all the beautiful women
come out. So for now I was say good bye as a particular summer dress looks like
it needs my attention.
Peace
and Love, Tanner, basically Anthony Bourdain
