"My god... it's full of cars..."

Weds 08/05/2008 03:28 GMT (19:28 Pacific), LAX Terminal 2 gate 21b:
I've heard "urban sprawl" as a descriptor of wide, flat cities but never seen it enacted as vividly as on the descent into Los Angeles. I've also never seen car parks so vast nor roads so horrifyingly wide. Unfortunately the approach and departure in a couple of hours' time is all we'll get to see of the place this trip as we're confined to a couple of generously-sized transit lounges whilst teams of airline staff throw fresh bagsful of towels and cushions and suchlike up the steps of our aircraft. The fill-in-the-special-form process was remarkably gentle compared to what I was anticipating; fill in the form on the aircraft, present it to a nice wee unarmed man behind an un-armoured desk, present the face to a webcam and firmly press both index fingers in turn onto a scanner - no "are you or have you ever been" or anything. I was expecting at least twenty armed and sunglassed-up security personnel; even British airports have armed polices roaming around them. I was expecting to have to struggle to not appear suspicious by smirking slightly at the memory of the episode of the telly version of Absolute Power where Charles visits the US embassy, is told "we find that humor [sic] can be an obfuscation to security" or somesuch and when presenting his eye to the iris scanner and being asked "have you ever sought to overthrow the government of the United States?" replied "My god... you mean that thing can read minds?"

There are a couple of tellies on the walls of this particular room. It's EXACTLY like the mocking depictions of The Day Today, Brass Eye and so on except terrifying for being real.

There's also a room between the two sub-lounges with two-way mirrored glass windows. I'd best not say too much about them as they might be reading my screen through binoculars.

04:15 GMT (20:15 Pacific), LAX Terminal 2 gate 21b:
I wonder if it's illegal under Federal Airport Law for the staff in this transit lounge to cut off the security announcement each time it erupts. I imagine it's something to do with the usual unidentified-baggages-will-be-shot but never gets further than "Would all passe-" before curtailment.
Oh. The duty-free has just opened. How exciting! It's like a cupboard but with one bottle of each type of booze in it and no-one appears to be buying anything, perhaps because their purchase would leave the shelves all gappy like a bad-toothed mouth.

05:27 GMT (21:27 Pacific), LAX Terminal 2 gate 21b:
Boarding soon. 24 hours of wakefulness under the eyelids. Still, viewing the travelling as part of the holiday and it doesn't grate at all, even when it involves stopping in countries I've not been to but not actually getting to visit them. I did at least get my first-ever stamp on my passport.

***

10:00 GMT (21:00 NZT), somewhere probably quite both the equator:
The original plan was to sleep for the LAX-Auckland portion but it's ever so slightly on the impossible side. Unfortunately we haven't been re-upgraded as this section of the flight is slightly busier and our former seats are now occupied. I'll try and watch some more films instead and see if I fall asleep...

12:00 GMT (23:00 NZT), still somewhere unidentifiable over the Pacific:
Lucky that this portion of the journey takes place entirely at night so that there is absolutely no point in even looking out of the window and there is therefore a slight chance that I might sleep at some point even though it feels impossible.

14:54 GMT (01:54 NZT), still somewhere unidentifiable over the Pacific:
Aaaah. Aren't the completely unidentifiable stars pretty?
Still no sleep.

16:14 GMT (03:14 NZT), still somewhere over the Pacific:
Cool. I'd have thought the effect of turbulence could be considerably less noticeable in a big fat aircraft like a 747-400 compared to the standard budget-carrier-A320 on which we usually experience it. NOT SO. It's getting fairly thrown around the sky at the moment; no sounds of puking yet though.

Weds 07/05/2008 18:19 GMT (Thu 08/05/2008 05:19 NZT), a little bit above Auckland:
That's pretty. No sleep but awake again. It's still the 7th according to LA time and it is a picture thereof which I'm posting and the picture is related to the travelling which is still happening but I'll switch to local blip-time now as far as camera-date and thus EXIF-date is concerned.