The Wandering Tattler

We didn’t have to arrive at the Auckland airport until mid-afternoon, so this morning we drove east of the city center along the suburban park that lines the shore of Mission Bay. We spent a few hours here walking along the ocean, climbing to the top of an overlooking hill, and eating lunch at a sidewalk cafe. When we arrived at the Qantas international terminal in mid-afternoon we were able to check in and pass through security fairly quickly, although the protocol was definitely more rigorous here than at the domestic terminal. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed by the late arrival of our 747 aircraft, a development that would definitely cause problems in Los Angeles. We had originally reserved flights that would give us a 4-hour layover in LA, but the airlines had juggled schedules, leaving us only two hours to deplane at LAX, retrieve our luggage, clear customs and immigration, and check ourselves and our luggage onto the Boston-bound flight. The flight delay in Auckland meant that we’d have no more than an hour in Los Angeles to accomplish all this.

The twelve-hour flight eastward was far more difficult than our original flight from Honolulu to Sydney. There were few empty seats (there was one between Lynn and me), so neither of us could stretch out on an empty row, and we were located near one of the food-preparation areas, so during the short night, when the plane’s interior was darkened, bright light flashed on our faces whenever a flight attendant entered or left the kitchenette. The passengers in front of us had reclined their seats, and it was impossible to find a comfortable position, especially if one was over five-foot six-inches, so the economy section was filled with people silently struggling and shifting to find a tolerable posture that would allow a brief snooze. There was nothing to do but to suffer through the night, minute-by-minute, patiently confident that someday all would be well.

Undoubtedly each passenger had at some point contemplated the surreal circumstances of this flight, which left Auckland Thursday evening in the autumn and would land in California Thursday morning in the spring, but this noteworthy distinction offered little comfort to those of us coping with life in economy-class seating.

Our plane encountered daylight in the eastern Pacific and after a long descent into the LA smog, we hobbled off the plane in Los Angeles, waited twenty minutes for our luggage, and wrestled our six pieces over to immigration and customs, hoping that the screening and stamping of passports and import forms would go quickly and that none of our bags would be pulled aside for investigation. The federal authorities at LAX were mercifully efficient, and American Airlines pulled us up to the front of an incredibly long security-check line, sparing us a thirty-minute wait. Despite having to remove our shoes and empty our pockets and laptop case, we somehow managed to reach the gate for our Boston flight just as our row was called for boarding. Here we entered a plane that was completely filled with passengers, with even less leg room than on the Qantas flight, so once again, sleep was out of the question. The five hour flight to Logan Airport, however, seemed almost trivially short after our transoceanic ordeal, and soon enough we felt the predictable shock of a cool April Atlantic breeze as we wheeled our luggage out to the curbside at Logan.

Our Thomas Transportation driver made us wait thirty minutes before picking us up and taking us back to Keene, where we arrived around midnight. After a quick drive down to Hannafords supermarket (with corrective moves into the right-hand lane on Arch Street) to pick up milk, juice, and cereal, we hit the mattress and slept soundly until Friday morning. Home – at last!