North America, 2010

Friday, January 29 – Journey and Arrival, California

Quote: "Shoulder to shoulder into the fray...."

We have made it safe and relatively sound to LA or Anaheim to be precise. It was a LONG flight and I had no sleep - Angus managed a very unsettled 2 hours or so. Tip for next time: get a flight that leaves Australia in the evening, so it feels like sleeptime sometime before they start lighting the cabin for arrival.

The VAustralia in-flight entertainment was excellent (the general service a bit less so), providing no incentive at all for either of us to sleep. So - it’s now been 24 hours with just the hour and a half sleep I collapsed into at the hotel just now.

Our rooms weren’t ready for quite a few hours after we got here - we arrived about 8.45 am, with checkin at 4pm: poor planning on my part. But, they got us in at about midday, so we spent the morning wandering around Downtown Disney unshowered, unchanged, and overtired. It says something that something that we were still in pretty good spirits, mostly due to Angus’s excitement about the place.

We’re going for dinner shortly -happy hour ‘appetisers’ at the hotel - we’re still full from breakfast really (at the Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney). The first of many food misunderstandings occurred there: the waitress asked how I wanted my breakfast - I said I’d have the sausages, from the bacon / sausages choice. Then she was still waiting, and had to prompt me “and your toast?” to which I replied “yes please”. She looked at me as though I were in need of special assistance, and rattled off a list on which I recognised a few names and selected ‘sourdough’ so as not to display any further ignorance.

After that, I expected the same when I ordered a coffee and was prepared my ‘full caf single shot lowfat’ etc. but instead got a cup of incredibly, gut-strippingly strong percolated coffee slapped down in front of me, with no spoon to stir in the uht ‘half and half’ sachets of something that may have once been related to something that met milk a long time ago. But at least it was on the house.

The people and culture here overall feel very strange. Very rude immigration officials and airport ground staff, surly cab drivers, and super super friendly people in Downtown Disney (and not just those trying to sell us things. Even the other visitors are so, so nice.

We go to Disneyland proper tomorrow, for a full day.

Things we’ve learnt:

A: Disneyland is pretty exciting.

B: 1. What I would normally consider social interactions are often considered business transactions by the other transactors.

2. The tipping culture does not guarantee good service, at all.