Gringo Tour 2008/09 - Part 1



Blogger - how retro - unless you host a music blog (I heart Discodust and Hyperbole and Ohhcrapp or something)... Anyhows - I'm writing to you from the Brisvegas International Airport - hanging around for a while waiting for our flight to LAX.

Ant and I are off again (haven't been anywhere together since our Eastern European tour last year - and yes - NZ doesn't count as an international holiday). We are spending almost 5 weeks touring the west coast of the states, mexico and (don't tell the american immigration peeps) Cuba (I heart Fidel)... Although this time the flights are all bling bling business to and from the states... Doing our bit for global warming.

We had to get up at the crack of dawn (well it was before the crack of dawn) to catch our 6am flight from Canberra to Brisvegas. Because we had recently upgraded our flights from economy to business - they automatically upgrade the connecting domestic flight - so we both had a bit of a taste of the Business class Qantas club domestic lounge (new at Canberra). So all the plebs now sit out in the old lounge while all of the sexy people get trashed and throw mobile phones at Qantas staff at the Business lounge. It was neeyce, different and unusual (not unusually you from Britney which I had in my head all day long).

The flight to Brisvegas was OK - you get toast in Business... Wow...

Interconnecting at Brisvegas airport is a bit of pain - you need to catch the Sky Train (aka intersuburban Brisvegas train) which claimed you were reducing your carbon footprint - yet the train had the aircon cranked up global warming style.

Brisvegas International airport was a bit of a mess - lots of random people and stuff every - it was like so random...! Ant grabbed a Brisvegas International Airport guide - which was entitled "The Time of Your Life". It might be the "Time of Your Life" if you lived in Brisvegas and were getting out.

Because we are reech beech tourists in Business class this time round (screw the GFC) - we got so called "express" tickets through immigration and security. Although it wasn't so express when about 2 flight loads of Arabic flight hostesses decided to bypass the express queue and security and made us all wait around for a while. Ant got an extra pat-down by an unsexy security guard - thrown in for good measure. I also had problems at Immigration - Border Security style. I forgot to write down my passport number on my departure card - and the customs lady said "we are having issues processing Nicholas' passport - please wait around the back".

We wait around where we were told to - and we start to debate why they were having trouble "prcessing my passport". Ant thought that the magnetic strip on the passport had failed and I thought to myself - how am I going to get a new one...?

An immigration man came round 5 minutes later and said that the customs girl didn't think I looked like my picture.... but he let us go... Maybe they were thinking that I was into identity theft like Sandra Bullock caught in the Net... or something.

So here I am - barely getting through Brisvegas Customs - coming to you live from Brisvegas Interational Qantas Club (which is fairly underwhealming) - having to hang around for another 5 hours before our flight to LAX...

Until next time...