ARRIVAL IN VANCOUVEROh my God, they've really got to put countries closer to one another because it sure is a loooooooong way from Melbourne to Vancouver. At the half way mark, I just wanted to turn back around and go home again!
Everything was going well until we arrived in Brisane. Had to take the Airtrain to the international terminal and just made it as the doors were closing.
At the international terminal, we had to check-in for my flight to Los Angeles. Several of us went to stand in the wrong queue and we didn't realise it until we heard the lady at the Virgin check-in counter tell a man that he was in the wrong line for Los Angeles.
Virgin personnel were really great as they opened a new checkin-counter just for us idiots. They were really quick and efficient.
Everything went pear shaped for me when we landed in Los Angeles due to the incompetent Alaskan Airlines - warning: stay away, stay very faaaaaaaaaaaaaaar away from these guys.
Our Virgin flight arrived on time and we went through border security. They were pretty quick and I had plenty of time to find the Alaskan Airline check-in counter.
As I had read on the plane information screen that I had to go to terminal 3 I looked around but found only terminal 5 and 6. I asked one of the security guards and he told me to go to terminal 6 - no mention of terminal 3 at all. I asked another guard near terminal 6 and he advised that I was, indeed, in the correct area and not to worry about terminal 3.
When I arrived, there was a huge queue. I wasn't worried as I still had at least 1 hour 30 minutes until the flight took off. I first tried the Online check-in but it didn't seem to work. So I stood in line with the other -mostly Latin American - travellers. That, right there, should've set alarm bells ringing. Didn't see anyone from my Brisbane flight there.
I was in line for 45 minutes and hadn't gone so far as one step forward. Panic started. There were three windows, but only one guy doing the check-ins and the other two counters were closed. There was a large group of Irish travellers that were holding the line up as the guy had a hard time processing their passports.
Five minutes later I spotted a girl who had been on my flight from Brisbane and we joined forces to try and convince the checkin-dude to check us in quickly as our flight was at 9:30am. It was now 8:50am. He laughed and said that no, he wouldn't check us in because the checkin time for that flight had closed. "You should've arrived three hours before take off and checked in", he replied. When we advised him that we couldn't have done that, he said "Not my problem". That was the attitude of the "Help" crew that were walking around the terminal as well when we approached them with our predicament, Not my problem. I was really mad and wanted to swear at the dude in both languages - he was Latin America.
When we finally got served at 9:20am, he booked us stand-by tickets for the next flight at 2:30pm. I felt sorry for Keely, my new friend, as she was going home to Vancouver to visit her family after a year living and working in New Zealand. Her family lived 5 hours away from Vancouver and had made the trip to the air port to pick her up.
We decided to go straight to find our gate and settle in until it was time for our flight. Once we found our gate, we went to a diner called Ruby's to eat something - well, I ate something. Keely didn't want anything.
Keely contacted her dad to let him know what had happend. He sugested we go speak to someone at the "Help" desk next to our gate to see if we could be taken off stand-by and given seats for the 2:30pm flight. As I was still eating my cheese burger and fries, Keely went off on the errand. She came back with two tickets for us.
We sat around talking and discussing the idiots at Alaskan Air. We traded e-mail addresses and hopefully we'll keep in touch.
Once on the aircraft, I was seated next to a Korean guy called Damien. He was going home after an emeregency trip to Korea. He was really great and was full of information on his home city.
After the plane took off, I just slept. There is no entertainment on the plane so there was nothing else to do. Not only me, but Damien and the girl sitting on the other side of me slept as well.
When I arrived at the airport and went to collect my luggage, it wasn't on the carousel - it was sitting against a wall with some other suitcases. It apparently arrived in Vancouver on my original flight at 12:22pm. I was informed by the idiot at the Alaskan Airline desk in LA that my luggage would be taken off and be placed on my new flight due to security concerns. Liar!!
Damien advised me that I could take a train into town but, when I finally exited the Vancouver Airport, all I could see was a line of taxis. I was so tired by now that I just jumped in the first one in the taxi line. I couldn't be bothered looking around for the train. And, as my luck was going, I probably would've ended up getting off at the wrong station.
As soon as you leave the Airport, you see mountains. Beautiful!!! It was a warm, sunny day with a whisper of a breeze blowing. As we drove through the city to my hotel, I really loved what I saw.
I just love my hotel room - a king sized bed and more than enough space! I ordered room service, then, after eating had a shower and went to bed - at 9pm.
I had officially been awake more than 24 hours.
