Travels in the USA: Day 1

[thewhitelily]

So day one of our little jaunt began, as always, on extremely little sleep. 

Yesterday we made the decision to finally FINALLY take the plunge and, rather than struggling with printouts from Google Maps, purchase our own device, add on US maps, claim the duty back when leaving Australia, and have it available to the family pool for various trips.  Hubby’s never used a GPS navigator before, so he’s dubious.  I know better.  :)  So, we now have purchased a Garmin Nuvi 1350, which promises to keep us on track, at least in Australia.  He's known semi-consistently as The Colonel, in response to the rather pretentious British voice we chose for the directions after laughing ourselves sick at the absurd Australian accent that had come as default.  Honestly, it reminded us of the Google Maps April Fools Day prank.  :)

Getting hold of the USA maps turned out to be more of a challenge.

The Garmin website seemed essentially easy to use, but given the late decision, by the time we’d actually bought the device, tracked down the appropriate maps, purchased them, and started the download, it was 7:30pm.  Which was a win, because that meant we were on track to finish the download at around 10:30 and possibly even get to bed early the night before an overseas holiday.

Could it really happen?

Of course not.

When we returned to work (which has a more reliable internet connection than our home) to collect the device at around 10:30, the download had failed.  Would we like to restart?

Bugger.  New ETA: 1am.

On the bright side, since I stayed at work to babysit the download in case it decided to fail again, I got to update my livejournal.  On the even brighter side, on the second time though, the download worked flawlessly and integrated the USA maps onto the device so seamlessly that it took me ten minutes to work out how to check if they were there.  But of course they were. 

Yay!  So, to bed.  After taking a backup copy of the maps that had taken so long to download, and installing the appropriate software I'm used to having on my travel machine onto the mini-notebook we're taking with us, and running through the packing list checking I had everything, and getting up three times in the middle of the night to write something on the 'must do tomorrow morning' list.

Tomorrow morning came after approximately three hours sleep and woah, maybe this pregnancy tiredness thing is hitting me harder than I’d thought, because I've been a complete wreck today.  Usually I'd be able to manage until tomorrow, but I've been eyeing off places to lie down with lustful eyes all day.  On the plane, I even had the brilliant idea that the next version of long-distance economy flights should involve a system similar to the possibly mythological (I honestly have no idea) Japanese postbox beds, where they stack everyone three high but at least you get to lie down.  I reckon they could actually fit more passengers into the same space than they do at the moment, so I think the idea’s got promise.

It turned out we couldn't claim the duty back on the navigator at the airport, despite the assurances of the people at JB Hi-Fi - apparently the cost needs to be over $300, and we didn't make it by quite a distance.  Which is a good thing, of course, but I couldn't help feeling like I shouldn't have bothered shopping around and bargaining for the best price.

The flight itself was obviously pretty boring, but I watched three episodes of Glee before my in flight entertainment system packed it in, which I took as a sign and tried to sleep.  And, as has been fairly common since about two weeks before I even knew I was pregnant, tried in vain.  Although perhaps I can't blame Agatha for the entirity of my inability to sleep on the plane.  In any case, despite slouching to the side on my pillow with my eyes closed, an eye mask to make sure they stayed closed, and earplugs to cut the sound of the kid beind me eating cornchips down to a dull roar, trying to daydream myself to sleep for approximately ten hours with only breaks for the loo and DVT exercises, I managed two stretches of about an hour where I couldn't swear I was definitely awake. 

Then for the five hour layover in Los Angeles

This is probably the time to mention what have been a mixed blessing and bane of my life over the past week: compression stockings.  I have serious family history of varicose veins during pregnancy, and I've been getting extremely sore legs along with brief stabbing pains in a few specific locations that make me just a little concerned.  In any case, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, eh?  So enter my friends The Compression Stockings.  My mum warned me that they'd be no good once I actually had any kids, since you have to spend the first ten minutes of the day, before getting out of bed, struggling to put the darn things on.  I mean, they're supposed to compress all the way up.  How do you get a thing which is supposed to apply compression to your ankle over your heel?  HOW?!  With great effort, struggling, and swearing, that's how.  I suspect the swearing is why Mum said it wouldn't be an option once I had kids.  :P

In any case, despite the compression, my legs have understandably but visibly swelled on the flight over.  I spent the latter half of the flight dreaming of reaching Los Angeles, solely so I could lie on the floor of the gate lounge with my feet up on a seat for a couple of hours and feel the blood running back into the rest of my body.  I think the Americans thought I was strange, but I was ready to tell anyone who asked that I was Australian, so I was still getting used to not hanging by my feet.

The five hour layover turned out to be, thanks to clouds in San Francisco, a six hour layover.  Then a seven hour layover.  Then an eight hour layover.  At this point, we could have hired our car in Los Angeles and driven to San Francisco faster than waiting for the plane.  Although given the way that Hubby and Penski drowsed at the airport once their Starbucks wore off, I'm not sure that today is really the right day for a long and perilous drive on roads that are the wrong way around.

Have I mentioned Penski yet?  This trip, rather than being just Hubby and myself, we are accompanied by another friend from work for the holiday as well as the conference portion.  This should be great fun, if possibly offer potential for uncomfortable moments in triple-share rooms most of the way around.

In any case, our plane eventually took off, eventually brought us through to San Francisco, where we picked up our luggage and hire car without incident, and The Colonel found the satellites and gave us a flawless route through to our hostel, where we booked in and got our car parked with only minor confusion and one trip around the block.

Despite being light on sleep, however, once we’d settled in and chosen beds (Penski declined to sleep with Hubby in the double which would have let me have a bed to myself, which I thought was most ungentlemanly of him), we headed out for a bit of minor sightseeing and some clam chowder.  We ended up walking all the way from Union Square to Fisherman’s Wharf, through Chinatown and via Coit Tower (ie. the telegraph tower on highest hill around) which had seemed like a doable way to beat the post-flying stiffness at the hostel and stay awake/physically exhaust ourselves a bit. But after charging about trying to make it up the hill and down again before the sun set, we ended up very nearly falling asleep in our soup. If I'd had the clam chowder as well, we would have needed a lifeguard for the drowning risk.  Agatha, it seems, doesn’t like any kind of fish product, particularly after vigorous exercise.  I’m not usually much of a fish person, but I enjoy shellfish and crustaceans quite a bit, usually.  At the moment, however, it seems not.  Luckily I realised this early when I considered running to the bathroom to throw up while reading the menu, ordered something vegetarian that she didn't like much either, but significantly better than the obligatory spoonful of Hubby’s chowder.

We caught the tram back to our hostel, and slept all the way through to 10am the next morning in real, horizontal beds that were warm and soft and, after a 24 hour transit day + sightseeing, absolute heaven.