Away to LA

Wattle weather, midwinter in Brisbane

Well, I’m actually here in Los Angeles! Coming off the plane, the ‘Welcome to the United States of America’ sign gave me a jolt of reality. Over the last few weeks I’ve been so busy preparing for my departure, attending to work and personal matters, that I’ve had little chance to think seriously about the reasons and implications of all the busy-ness.

But importantly, amidst all the flurry, David and I had a delightfully peaceful pause over the week-end at Oceanview Estates, a winery with great restaurant and 2 neat cabins http://oceanviewestates.com.au/. The previous week-end we had a lovely family dinner with Peter, Mark and Vanessa, before M and V headed off to NZ for a ski-ing holiday.

Although I’d been making piles of stuff for the US for a couple of weeks on Mark’s bed, I didn’t get round to packing until Tuesday afternoon (day before departure). The plane took off Weds 11 am in perfect Brisbane wattle season weather – sunny, crisp, blue sky. The pilot commented that Moreton Bay looked so beautiful it was almost a shame to leave Queensland and caused me a moment of wistfulness. We landed in LA at 7.30 am, still Weds! Here it was warmer, but quite foggy, so unfortunately there was no view of the landscape. Bizarrely, coming down to land it looked like a snowfields, with mountain tops emerging out of the clouds below the plane.

Traps for unwary scholars! I had some hassles with excess baggage at Brisbane airport and ended up at the last minute jettisoning a pile of academic papers and a novel. (Note: ‘Informed learning’ and ‘Working together’ survived the cull!) Then at LA airport my collection of gifts, including a heap of QUT freebees (pen, rubber wristbands etc) caused some consternation with customs, who thankfully decided I wouldn’t need to pay duty since these things were for educational purposes.

I’m presently staying at a hotel near LAX airport, which is handy with free shuttle to/from airport - a helpful suggestion from Erica :) Clean room, pleasant staff. After sorting myself out, I caught the ocean trolley (an antique bus) to Manhattan Beach – walked along the pier and seafront, enjoying fresh air and exercise after the plane journey; but nearly run over by several skateboarders, until I realised I was on the skaters’ rather than the walkers’ path. For lunch I ate about half of the biggest sandwich I’ve ever encountered – delicious, multilayered, seemed to be about half a loaf of bread. Friendly waiter taught me that ‘jack’ is a kind of cheese and ‘squaw’ a sweetish wholemeal bread.

On my way back from M Beach, the bus dropped me off at a discount store to buy a mobile phone – oops, cell phone. Samsung with camera & charger, free connection to cell network and $10.00 credit all for &19.99. Amazing compared with Aus prices!

By 6.30pm I was really ready for bed – and slept until 7.00 am Thursday morning when the alarm went off. Woke once during the night when the aircon came on with a huge whoosh.