Reluctant departure

22 April 2007

A trip that I didn’t want

We’re flying to Los Angeles for a short trip to Florida.  It’s not a trip that I really wanted or needed.  I had only just returned from a two-month trip to Yemen only a week ago.  It seemed ridiculous to fly out so soon heading in the opposite direction.

But my aunt had prepaid highly-discounted accommodation vouchers in Florida that were expiring and we have access to discounted staff flights to/from the USA.  She had transferred them to us, so it seems like a waste to not utilise them.

These came with a catch though.  These highly-discounted nights for her were subject to attending timeshare presentations.  We’re used to these sales pitches and are capable of nodding and smiling, then saying “No thank you, it really doesn’t work for us”.

Flying to Los Angeles

We queued for an hour to get to check-in this evening.  Being on standby on a very busy flight, we weren’t issued our boarding passes. While there were seats, the aircraft was a tad heavy.  We were asked to check-back with them an hour before departure.  Fortunately, we managed to get our boarding passes then and rushed through passport control and security to the gate.

Our seats mid-ship seemed quite noisy.  The meals on Air New Zealand had been getting lighter.  While delicious, I couldn’t help thinking “Where’s the rest of it?” after having flown Emirates often.  Kim was lucky enough to have his colleagues give him a spare bunk in crew rest.

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