Day 00 – Getting to Anaheim

Saturday, 11 March rolled around pretty quickly and before I knew it, I was in another taxi, on another flight, but this time it wasn’t Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. It was an international flight. In fact, it was my first international flight in three years, three months, and three days. As we all know Covid essentially killed off international travel for most people, well pretty much everyone: so to be travelling internationally after so long filled me with both trepidation and a little bit of excitement.

Forever dependable Moses picked me up at about 7.00am for my Canberra flight to Sydney where I transferred to the  international terminal. All pretty uneventful, although the international terminal in Sydney was quite busy. In all the mayhem of so many people, my meet and assist guide was nowhere to be seen. With my cane in hand, I battled the crowd. Thankfully, I was quickly spotted by a staff member who guided me to the fast lane, and before I knew it, I was sitting in the Qantas First Lounge, enjoying a glass of champagne and breakfast. The lounge was so serene compared to the mayhem in the departures hall. As I sat and enjoyed breakfast I took in my surrounds. A family on their first overseas holiday were excitedly talking about their visit to Japan, a man in a suit was talking strategy with his team in Dubai, and an elderly couple couldn’t wait to meet their grandson for the first time in London.

The flight to LA, Q11, was delayed by about 90 minutes, I wasn’t bothered at all. I had no plans once I arrived in Los Angeles so a delay was a perfect opportunity to enjoy a croissant and a hot chocolate. I sat facing the runway thinking about the logistics needed to keep an airport running. Little cars and trucks were darting here and there in between massive aircraft that lumbered out of their bays towards the runway, where the lumber turned into a thunder as they soared to destinations too numerous to name..

Finally, a boarding call. 

I boarded the plane first and was shown to my seat and the staff introduced themselves to me and offered me all the assistance I needed. This is quite comforting giving it was my first international flight in over three years. 

When QF11 finally took off the captain informed us that we would arrive in LA on or shortly after our scheduled time. Flight time had been shortened by a rather brisk tailwind. The Qantas crew as always, were just fantastic

The flight was rather uneventful, 12 hours, pretty smooth, and I filled my time by watching some TV, snoozing, pre-reading some conference materials, and chatting to the person next to me.

When we landed in LA, my meet and assist person was waiting for me at the door and guided me from the aircraft door to the shuttle bus. It was a fantastic support as LA is a rather large airport and I struggle with big crowds, big and unfamiliar spaces and trying to locate which line I should be in. My guide got be in the really fast line and we were through immigration with my bags and at the shuttle bus in pretty quick time. She left me at the shuttle bus stop and I boarded the first shuttle bus that arrived. The shuttle bus at LAX these days takes you to a taxi rank that is not within the airport. There’s extensive renovations and construction work in the airport precinct, and the airport authority has removed all cars, taxis and Ubers from the precinct and allocated a designated area outside the airport. This therefore requires a shuttle bus to get you from one of the terminals to the designated pick up spot.

I asked the driver to drop me at the taxi rank. He informed me that I was on the staff bus and that all this bus did was do laps of the terminal. That’s no good. I asked him again how I caught the shuttle bus to the taxis. He instructed me to get off at the next stop and walk backwards until I saw the large green pillar. Okay I thought I’ll give that a go. So I alighted at the neck stop and walked until I saw a green pillar and got on the next shuttle bus. Leroy, my driver, Identified my accent straightaway and said “g’day mate, how’s the Fosters and koalas going down under?”. Leroy mimicked a typical Aussie accent.  “They are pretty good mate, I don’t have any Fosters with me, but if you get me to an Uber shop I’ll show you a photo of a cute koal”. He said “No worries maaaate” in his rough Australian accent. For the next 10 minutes. Leroy proceeded to tell me how great Australia was and how he loves koalas and Fosters. I thought is this the message that we send to the world: Our country is full of koalas and Fosters beer drinkers! Who knows? Maybe it’s the only message that’s getting through. Anyway, a few minutes later, Leroy pulls up at the combined taxi/Uber drop off point and points me in the direction of a taxi.

David, my taxi driver, yells at me to get in his cab. Let’s get going. He grabs my bag, and with one motion throws it in his boot while saying where to. I say Anaheim. And we both jump in and head off to Anaheim. 

David, a retired veteran, sports long white hair in a pony tail, isn’t married, lives with his step mother and was born in Chicago. Amazing what you learn in an hour! When we arrive at the hotel, it’s about 9.00 am, and too early for me to check in. So I check with David if he has a suggestion of maybe a quick sightseeing opportunity for me, he does and suggests a local aquarium at Long Beach. In addition to the aquarium there is a very nice harbour and peers to walk around. So I take his suggestion and he drops me to Long Beach.

I enjoy a couple of hours at the aquarium, where on more than one occasion I sit mesmerised by the massive tanks filled with hundreds of fish as they go about their daily routine. From the small and dainty clownfish, we are all accustomed to as a result of the Finding Nemo franchise to the large and muscular sharks made more fearsome by the Jaws franchise. The fish float and hover in their environments: a large groper stops immediately opposite where I’m standing, and we seem to lock eyes, me looking at him wondering what he’s doing and he looking at me wondering what the hell I am and what the hell I’m doing. Who is on show, me or him? He glides off, twitching one of his left pectoral fins and arcs away from me. As I move between the large vessels of water again, I’m transfixed by the iridescent jellyfish. The tank is void of vegetation, void of rocks, it is a stark environment. Perhaps this is where, and how they live in the ocean, I don’t know. But the tank is filled with dozens of them, they just appear to float there, hang in there, as if suspended in some slow motion dance with each other.

In a coral reef tank a puffer fish swims by, a young child yells, “mummy, look he only has one fin”. Despite his lack of fin, he swims fine. The volunteer on duty says he was brought to the aquarium like that as he probably wouldn’t have survived in the ocean. There is also a three legged turtle in the tank, a survivor of a shark attack.

I venture outside and explore stingray ponds and shark tanks. Again, I listen to knowledgeable volunteers, talk about the species and their habitats.

After about three hours of wandering through the aquarium, I decide to leave and walk along the promenade at Long  Beach. I walk to the light house and around the end of the harbour. It is quite picturesque, but also shrouded in a low fog, which has been hanging around all day.

After another hour of walking around I call David and he picks me up and I head into the hotel to check in.

I’m pretty tired by the time I check in, I’ve been on the go now for almost 24 hours, but I fight their urge to sleep to overcome the jet lag. I wander the hotel grounds, go to the gym and do some more preparation for the conference. It gets to around 8.00pm and I’m done, so I give in to sleep.