There’s something to be said for starting slow, enjoying your coffee and THEN attacking the day.
The plane was identical to the one we came out on – about 100 seats, all business class. It’s by far the nicest plane and seats we’ve ever had, but if you can imagine being strapped into your Lazy Boy for about 14 hours, being allowed up only to go to the bathroom, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what it feels like.
Unlike the trip over, we had an abundance of lunch / dinners rather than breakfast so we’re all averaged out again. We got on the plane about 4:00 p.m. on Friday (local time – that would have been 3:00 a.m. Hickory time). Where the trip over was 17 hours, 40 minutes, this one was just over 14 hours, aided by a 200 mph jet stream pushing us the right direction.
So you get on the plane, get settled into your “nest”, and a meal comes – again, we’d pre-ordered and they had it down right (as if anyone could remember what they ordered for dinner 2 months ago!). Anyhow, one had a steak, one chicken, and we swapped halvsies.
The weird thing about coming back from Southeast Asia, though, is that you’re in the daylight all the time. They accommodate this by pulling all the blinds so after dinner most everyone drops off to sleep. Our bodies think it’s evening by them, so when it gets dark it’s not hard to believe it.
After a few hours, people start to wake up and eventually they turn the lights on a little at a time, so you aren’t jarred awake, and another meal comes – not breakfast, but another lunch / supper. Through the bizarre dimension of time travel that you’ve just experienced, we’re landing in Los Angeles at 2:00ish p.m. on Friday afternoon – 2 hours before we took off!
Our decision to come back through LAX was confirmed as a good one given the snowstorm that the northeast is experienced. One of our group went back through Frankfurt, was delayed there because of mechanical problems and then got delayed in NY, just a few hours from home. Weather this time of year is too volatile to risk tight connections and northern airports.
That was the reason we found ourselves with a 6+ hour layover in Los Angeles. There was internet, CNN and things to read, though, so the time passed relatively fast.
Doing the last leg of our trip on US Air is a real letdown after Singapore. Our business class seats converted to 1st class, but US Air has so stripped down those planes that it’s not a big step up from coach – the seats are like lawn chairs strapped in the plane, there’s still no entertainment or meal service (OK, a bag of chips – but that’s no more a “meal” than “ketchup” is a vegetable!).
A couple in the row in front of us and across the aisle had a baby – maybe 6 months old, and they were on the last leg of a 30 hour journey from China to bring her home. We did get to see 4 very proud grandparents meet them at the luggage claim and you couldn’t help but smile at their joy.
The last leg of our journey was on the Hickory Hop. For those of you who are local to Hickory (or who visit here), we can’t say enough good stuff about this service. Pickup and drop-off from the Hickory airport, it’s cheaper than driving your own car and parking it in Charlotte, plus you don’t have to get your brain together enough to drive after a long trip back – our job was to climb onto the van and ride back.
We hit the front door just before 8:00 in the morning.
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