The Benefits Of Terrorism: Abolishing Airline Bathroom Queues Worldwide

Flying over the dateline is disorienting. I left Sydney and arrived in San Francisco an hour later. After a thirteen hour flight. Yeah. Needless to say, I didn't know if I was Martha or Arthur for the next couple of days...thank god for the marvellous invention of Nyquil, even if it didn't always stop me waking up at 3 in the morning.

I flew Qantas and I have to say, the service is snooty, the legroom is uncomfortable (I'm a mere 5'3''), and the food is inedible but at least I didn't have to sit through Serendipity & Life as a House six times like I did last time. I'm one of those travellers who does not sleep on planes, at all and therefore rely entirely on inflight entertainment in order to sustain my sanity and stave off the cabin fever. I've only ever been on one other long-haul flight to Greece and that was five years ago. We flew Olympic. Entertainment on Olympic Airways is so bad that Qantas looks fantastic. Entertainment on Olympic was 44 hours of watching Hayden Christensen try and display a facial expression other than complete and total disaffection. So when I flew Qantas and discovered that not only do you get a choice of around 15 movies (13 of which are complete shit but what can you do?) and a whole array of TV shows AND full albums at your disposal, I was v. satisfied. For about four hours. I even made a great single-serving friend who assisted clueless little me (I swear my brain fell out the second that we took off) through Immigration and finding connecting flights. I was exposed to a large quantity of Americans for the first time, about three quarters of the passengers on my flight were American, so I was v. relieved to find myself seated next to a similarly-aged Australian chick who I could snark with. It was also my first exposure to the volume of the typical American's voice ie: ouch dude, you're louder than the jet engine, please STFU.

So after 12 long hours brightened only by Borat, Kath & Kim (how is it that I never got around to watching this show before? It's BRILLIANT!) and the Justin Timberlake album (did I not say that my brain had fallen out?) I emerged, buggered and in dire need of a shower. Unfortunately, I had another two hour flight to look forward to and before that, I had the hurdles of Immigration and Customs which seemed like such a confusing concept and I was sure I was going to slip up at some stage and be threatened with deportation or worse, an all-expenses paid trip to a dog cage in Cuba.

My first post-customs thought?

Why the HELL didn't I try and smuggle my Wollombi chilli olive oil into the country? Customs was a doddle! There were no sniffer dogs, no security checks, nothing...except for one guy to whom you hand your customs card. Even Immigration was easy, although I feel sorry for the guy who had to take a photo of me, eyeliner smeared and face oily from too much airconditioning and not enough air. He was surprisingly kind for an Immigration guy, I was expecting some drill sargeant hospitality but this guy could almost be classified as friendly.

The most confusing part was finding the Alaskan Airlines check-in counter and getting all my shit loaded onto the plane, almost flew with the wrong carrier... twice... and almost didn't get a seat because my flight was overbooked. The two occasions that I went over to inquire about the lack of seating on my boarding pass, the Alaskan Airlines woman looked at me expectantly and stated 'We're hoping some people might voluntarily give up their seats...they'll get a free round trip ticket to any Alaskan Airlines destination.' A tempting offer for sure, but there was no way in hell I was hanging around San Francisco aiport for another four hours. Eventually, I scored the best seating ever, a window seat in Exit Row, sitting next to an actual Alaskan Airlines pilot.

Captain Alaska, as he will be forever known in my mind, was a Bainbridge Island local who kept me occupied for the entire trip by using his knowledge of the San Fran - Seattle route to point out all the various landmarks (flying over Crater Lake and Mount St. Helens was an incredible experience), inquiring about the state of the Australian health/education/political system and bitching about the lack of decent political candidates. One of the benefits of sitting next to an Alaskan employee was the free (and huge) bottle of water I scored before we came in for landing. A very short two hours later I was in Seattle and feeling re-energised, despite looking (and smelling, presumably) worse than ever after an extra couple of hours in a flying tin can with wings. Cheers, Cap'n.