So, here I am in sunny South California, after many years of working things out and a long, stressful flight. Good number of things to talk about.

I believe it was Confucius who said that all journeys begin with the first step, and that first step was the short taxi ride to Eagle Junction. Pity about the rain, though. Luckily, my ride timed itself really well as I went and bought my ticket and the Airtrain arrived a minute later. The train goes through the construction site for the airport tunnel, so it will be interesting to see what happens there in eight months' time upon my return.

I arrived at the airport and checked in...fortunately my bag was a few hundred grammes under the 23kg limit...past that I think it's $50 per kilo if what I heard from a nearby passenger in-flight is true. Anyway, I hung out in the upstairs part of the airport for a little bit since I had three hours to kill, and decided to try the airport wi-fi to let my American friends know I was at the airport and have a chat. It would have cost me $13.20 to use the wi-fi! That's a bit steep...but then again, everything that involves the Brisbane Airport Corporation is expensive. I tried using a kiosk later on, but I don't think it worked properly.

So, wi-fi plans scuttled, I then went downstairs and through customs - they've changed the layout since I went to Europe over a decade ago. But the customs staff were all very friendly - even one of the security guards jokes about the lack of lights. They came on just before I sent my stuff through the X-ray scanner, so I'm not sure what happened there. With customs cleared, I hung out in the departure lounge and began my pre-flight preparations: an orange juice from the newsagent-type place, sitting down, walking around exploring, going down each arm of the terminal to look at the planes (Eva, Etihad, Niugini and I think there was a Singapore as well), drinking peppermint tea from The Coffee Club (note for my American readers: The Coffee Club is the Brisbane version of Starbucks), and then buying my flight supplies including, surprise surprise, orange juice. The problem with that last purchase, having bought my taxi ride with my $20 note, is that I needed to eftpos it, but they had a minimum purchase of $10 to do that. So, on top of my mints and orange juice, I bought two packets of snakes. Yes, I had snakes on a plane.

Now that I think of it, I was going to eftpos the taxi to the airport and pay for the one home...ah well, I think I'll do it in reverse.

When I had my peppermint tea, I put on these anti-motion sickness bands I got with my neck pillow and eyemask. They have these beads on them you're supposed to put in a specific location on your wrist...I got the right wrist fine, but I don't think I got the left, and I think I paid for it later.

I then went down to my gate and went through the security checkpoint they had set up there (after totally forgetting that my snakes on a plane could be suspicious given the attention the security guard gave them...). I went and took my seat, and then we were told that our flight would be delayed due to "industrial action" from the baggage handlers. Apparently they just simply walked off the job. Luckily we had checked in before they went on strike, but you can see the skeleton crew loading the bags. I had heard another flight get delayed by a number of hours due to the snap strike, so I was worried that I would be leaving many hours later and since I was past security and didn't trust the internet kiosks and did not want to spend $13.20 on wi-fi, I waited until they made their second announcement half an hour later. Fortunately it was good news, and we were right to board. So, we were only going to be half an hour late, not too much trouble since I told Rob, my friend picking me up in LA, to arrive half an hour later than my intended arrival anyway.

So, we boarded and took off, and I felt the finest I have ever been before a take-off. We wheeled around the city - I was on the port side of the plane and, due to the cloud, I didn't get to see much until we were over the northern suburbs. And we flew on towards the night, over New Caledonia and what I suspect is part of Vanuatu. You can see the photos I took from the plane here. I was also quite lucky that the seats beside me weren't occupied, though one of the three travelers in the row behind me moved forward, and we kinda shared the seat between us.

It was really odd that our menu consisted of lunch followed by breakfast, but perhaps that is how the trouble began. I was really all well and fine until I tried to sleep. It wasn't so much the fact that I could not get to sleep because of timezones and everything, but because of everything going on around me. The people sitting behind me were stewing in alcohol and the woman directly behind me had broken volume control set somewhere around the loud range, there were some kids who could not get to sleep and, of course, I could hear them especially when they started fighting, and there was a toddler who would cry at the slightest shake of the plane from the turbulence, which was often. So, with this lack of sleep, and the chicken parmigiana I had for lunch-dinner, and maybe the hot chocolate I had before I went to sleep (should have gone the peppermint tea, but it came out of a Cadbury Purple™ jug, so I could not resist), I was ill.

Violently ill.

I was fine while I tried to sleep, but once I woke up properly - maybe it was the smell of the eggs in the hot breakfast option that started it - it all began. I took one look at the continental breakfast option as it sat before me and that did it for me as well. Could not even bear to open the orange juice. Could not even think about food. So, it sat uneaten for a while, before I handed it back, rather sadly.

We landed and then, because I had to do some taking-care-of-myself, I ended up near the back of the queue. A queue full of passengers from the same 747. But, they managed to process us reasonably quickly - fortunate, as I thought I would have to sit down before I could get through and thus attract undue attention and leave the queue entirely. I was really worried about this part of the trip as it was the gatekeepers who would make or break my plans. To be honest, I'm really surprised by how quickly they sped me through; the customs official looked at my form and went, "Yep" and waved me through. The border security guy took a little longer, of course, and gave me the six month stamp on my I-94 form. I was expecting this to happen and I will have to get in touch with the immigration office to extend it, but that will have to happen somewhat closer to the time.

Once through and out the door, I looked around for Rob, but could not see him. So I waited a little while. Then, I went and asked the lady at the traveller's aid desk if there was a change machine around so I could change a bill for the phone as I couldn't see any vending machines around. To my surprise and delight, she gets out her purse and gives me four of her quarters. With much thanks, I call Rob...and get his messagebank. So I leave a message and wait around a little longer. I then open my laptop and try out the wi-fi there - $5.99 US for all day access. Much better deal than Brisbane, so I took it on my debit card (even with the currency exchange fee I won't be charged $13.20), and tried to see if something had happened and he left me an e-mail. No e-mail. Tried to get on the instant messenger he uses, but it would not connect - guess there's some mutual disagreement going on there between the messenger service and the wi-fi provider. So I waited a little longer, still feeling ill, and then I start to feel okay enough to walk around a bit. So I do a few times, sit, walk around some more, sit some more, and then finally Rob shows up with a trolley in tow for my luggage about an hour and a half after I came out of customs - didn't feel that long, though, my sense of time was completely warped. Apparently Qantas also lands at some other terminal and he went there by mistake and had the whole terminal looking for me. Oh my.

So, I went off with Rob, and threw my bag on the back seat of his Honda Accord coupe. I kinda regret that decision now because my camera was in there, locked up, and since Rob did as I asked him a few weeks before to keep me out in the sunshine for a bit so my body clock could adjust, we went and saw some sights. I was feeling too unwell to truly appreciate everything I saw, and too unwell to fight with my bag in the back seat. Which is a pity, because I saw:

- The Queen Mary
- Downtown Long Beach
- Huntington Beach (it's longer than Long Beach and the road runs right beside it all the way)
- Newport Beach (a ritzy kinda place)
- Rob's work (he had to call in to drop something off, but the first time we tried they were all at lunch)
- Irvine and its Spectrum Mall.

When we first pulled off the freeway into Irvine, I noted how everything looked pretty. "Keeping up appearances", I said, and Rob replied with "Half the city budget goes into doing that here". We went to the Spectrum Mall, which is basically an outdoor shopping centre, the first of its kind in the world (apparently...), which, when I noted some extensions, Rob said was "Yep, an excuse for more beige". I was still feeling quite out of it, but after sitting down for a little while there, I worked out what that smell was that had been following me around: the chicken parmiagana. I don't think it was cooked properly and it was just sitting there in my stomach.

Fortunately, we headed to Rob's place after he dropped in at work (with me thinking for a little while I'd need to use my travel insurance already and go to a hospital - fortunately this has not happened) and I crashed for a few hours. I felt a bit better after I woke up - I think it was sleep I really needed more than anything. I then met the rest of his family who are staying here - his brother and his father - watched some TV, uploaded my photos to Flickr, chatted, and then went to bed. This morning I felt a lot better, but I haven't really done anything today. It's for the better as I'm still recovering, even now as I type this up.

And that's it so far. It's taken me nearly all day to write this, on and off. I think it'll be easier for me to update later on as I'll probably be only doing one day at a time instead of three.