When we told the VAustralia staff member that this was no good, she offered to seat R in the seat behind me. That was marginally better, but still not good enough, so we asked to speak to someone about it. When we did that, they came up with two seats next to each other, at the emergency exit, which they normally charge extra for due to the extra legroom, but we got them at no extra cost.
The flight to Los Angeles was 13 hours, and we arrived at 7 am Wednesday morning, which was earlier than when we left Brisbane. We had a connecting flight to Seattle at 8:30, but had to go through immigration, where they refused to see us both at the same time because we are not "legally married" (as if that makes any difference) so we had to go through separately and were asked a bunch of questions, and had our photo and fingerprints taken, then we had to wait 15 minutes to get our suitcase. By then it was 7:55, and we ran over to the next terminal building where we dropped off the suitcase and then went to find a place to check-in. When we finally found one it was 8:05, and we were told that we were too late.
But the woman put us on the next flight, which was at 10:30, with no fuss and no charge. We figured that was pretty cool, because then we could spend some time in the terminal building, which is normally fun. Turns out that LA airport is very old fashioned, run down, small and very boring, so it wasn't fun at all.
There were only a couple of stores, and two places where you could buy drinks or food.
We were also reminded how much we both hate American toilets. The water level is stupidly high, so it all splashes up at you, and when you wipe your hand will most likely touch the water. ALL toilets in Usa are like that, and why they refuse to adopt the more intelligent European style toilets is a mystery.
At 9:50 we boarded and at 10:30 we took off as planned. There were no entertainment systems on this flight, which made it a bit boring, but free snacks and drinks, along with a nap relieved the boredom.
At 1 we arrived in Seattle, and then went to find our suitcase. We figured it would have been held back in LA, because it would be a security issues to put it on the plane without us, so we went to the luggage carousel, and waited there for 15-20 minutes, and then realised it wouldn't show up. We went and asked a staff member, and it turned out it was waiting for us in the back room, because it had been put on the previous flight from LA after all.
We then had to go and find the driver who was picking us up and driving us to the hotel, which was arranged by the hotel. We spent about 30-40 minutes waiting for him, before calling the hotel and they gave us the driver's number and we then finally found each other.
He drove us to the hotel where we checked in, plugged in our phones and netbook to charge and get online, and then napped for about 2 hours.
We then went for a walk up the street, and found a Metropolitan Market, which is the coolest supermarket ever. It is huge, has everything you could ever want, including heaps of organic stuff and wine from all over the world, and is nicely presented, unlike most other supermarkets I have seen where the goal is to cram as much stuff in as possible and not bother with presentation, because that costs money.
We got some snacks and microwave dinners, then walked back to the hotel and ate. We then got various work stuff done, and watched tv, and went to bed around midnight.
We woke up around 6, and R announced that he was wide awake. He got up, but I was still sleepy, so I stayed in bed until 8:30, when R decided to annoy me until I got up.
We headed out a little while later, towards the monorail terminal which is about a 5 minute walk from the hotel. It goes into the main shopping area in downtown Seattle, which takes about 1 minute and costs $2 per person.
The end terminal is at a small shopping centre, which looks like it hasn't been upgraded since the 1960s. It's not run down or anything, just old. We had maccas for breakfast there, and then spent the next few hours walking around in the main shopping area, and also walked down to the waterfront where Pike Place Market is. We had a look at the market, and it's just like any other market we have ever been to, but much bigger.
We tried to find an electronics store, but only found one small one that didn't have much, and we also got some souvenirs.
R had then developed a backache, so we walked back to the monorail terminal which took us back to the Seattle Center (sic) and we walked around there for a bit before returning to the hotel.
And here we are. R has been napping for the last couple of hours, and I have been writing this blog entry and uploaded the first few photos to my photo album.
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