June 27th

Got up bright and early this morning, at 3:30 AM. We left moments later, and got to the airport just after 4:15 AM, leaving plenty of time to catch my plane. I said bye to Dad and went for my terminal. My first flight was to Atlanta, where I had a layover. The flight was nice, and there was about 100 channels of XM radio to listen to on the plane, but no tv or movies. I sat beside a little kid named Andrew (maybe 10-11 years old) and after sleeping for a while on the flight, toward the end of our ride he started talking to me about various topics, especially video games. During my layover I talked to a nice 13-14 year old black kid from Memphis who was telling me about how it didn't make any sense how he had to fly east in order to go to California. He had a good Tennessee accent and liked to talk about how he's seen mountain lions near his house, about snapping turtles, and about crazy things he's seen on discovery channel.

The flight to LA was the same as my flight to Atlanta in that there was no tv, and I listened to XM radio the whole time. Apparently AirTran isn't big on TVs in their planes or something. After I got to Los Angeles airport (LAX), I gathered up my luggage, asked a worker if he could tell me how to get to the international terminal, then hiked on over. I wandered around the terminal for several hours looking at merchandise for sale in various shops, eating some vegetable fried rice at a Chinese restaurant, and checking my e-mail for $3. Apparently there was wireless internet in the airport, and I tried using my laptop to access the network. My laptop didn't pick up the signal, confirming my suspicion that I have a bad wireless card in my machine. Oh well.

Finally, 5 hours before my flight, Quantas airways started allowing people to check in and get their boarding passes. After that, I had had plenty of time to wander the airport, so I decided to just chill out at my gate and wait for the plane. The gate was completely empty at first, since I was there so early, and I was able to witness a Los Angeles sunset. By the time the plane had arrived and was ready to board, the entire gate was filled with people, and there were many people standing despite the numerous seats. When they finally began calling passengers to board the plane, they started with rows sixty-five through seventy-five -- I knew it was a huge plane but I didn't realize it would have that many seats! I sat in row 29, which ended up being just behind First Class, and right by the entrance where we boarded. It was nice because there were no seats immediately in front of my row, so I could stretch out my legs as much as I needed to. This plane had TVs for everyone, and we had the option of selecting about a dozen channels to watch various movies.

By the time the plane finally left, it was after 10:00 pm, and the entire plane was filled, save 3 seats. The one flight attentant said that the plane's capacity is 412 passengers, plus the crew. Most of the passengers sat in 75 rows of 3-4-3 seats on the main level of the plane, while those in Business class got a nice luxurious upstairs seating area. Most of the flight attendants were from New Zealand, although the head flight attendant was Australian. He had a good sense of humor -- for example, when people were boarding and he was telling them which way to go to get to their seats, he told one girl "turn right and go down this aisle, your seat will be on the left. If you get lost, just follow the yellow-brick path". The path was actually a shade of darker carpeting, so you can get an idea for his sense of humor. He made other similar comments throughout the evening and night.