Flight of the Conchords

OK, I'm ripping the title off HBO's wonderful new sitcom about aspiring Kiwi musicians, but I guess it's somewhat fitting since I've landed Down Under....yes, New Zealand counts! Well, I'm almost two weeks here in Sydney, and it's a wonderful city, little mix of San Fran and Seattle, but girls have the best accents to boot. But we'll get to that in another post, let's flash back a bit.

For now, let me rewind a to the travels over here. Based on my experiences flying around this great world, it would be fitting for me to get stranded in Guam Airport and rerouted to Sydney via Hong Kong or somewhere. But other than transfering my clothes from bag to bag for luggage weight issues and a delay at LAX, sitting on the plane for a few hours (yes, a bummer, and close call to a bad start of my journey), we promply took off over the vast Pacific Ocean. I actually recongnized Manhattan Beach as we were taking off, picturing Pag cooking up some scheme somewhere in his three-story house. As we continued our descent (such a pilot phrase), I was less sentimental and more excited....not because of the new land awaiting ahead, but because of the open seat between myself and a Hemmingway-looking dude two seats over. When you're on a 45 minute flight, or 14 hour in my case, there's few better feelings than, "hell yeah, my legs are gonna strech for this one!" And I may be alone in this, but another one of my favorite things (maybe not in life, but on a plane) is a warm-cooked meal delivered right to your seat. Something about sitting there with little to do, hungry and tired, receving a meal of reheated ravioli with a plastic glass of wine that seems to make things allll right. Oh, and at this point it was about 1:00 a.m. It's a strangely comforting, maybe because we never get food on flights these days (and what's up with that, BTW? Every other facet of customer-serviced business has improved over the years, but we can't get a tray of chicken and potatoes from New York to LA?) , but three meals on two flights, including a repeat of some omlet thingy? What more could I ask for? Oh right, the empty seat between me and Hemmingway, who's now reading a book about bird-watching...true renaissance man.

After an uneventful showing of Oceans "Lord-Knows-What-Number-They're-On," alot of sleep and few chapters of Chuck Klosterman, we landed in Fiji, which seems like, well, a pretty green island in the South Pacific with guys in skirts singing South Pacific songs as you land. At the airport, I ran into a mate from New Zealand I met at LAX, who was the first of many Kiwis who had no clue what Flight of the Conchords is. Lloyd is pretty much the epitome of the folks Down Under: very chill and laid-back, but well-traveled and overall knowledgeable about the world around him. He didn't think too highly of Sydney, was too big of a place for him. But I try to make my own opinion with places in the world. After all, I actually like LA of all cities!

A few more musings while 30k feet in the air: as the plane crosses the equator, does the toilet on the plane go one way, then reverse course to counterclockwise? Seriously folks, we need to get some attractive flight attendants on planes again. I just learned that hot girls work in banks now....don't they like to travel, too? Or was Cinemax lying?? I love flying into places I've never been as we land and notice the cars driving around. Like, "oh, they do that here....how cool are they? This place is so interesting!" But it was true in this case, the're on the left side of the road. I'm always interested in how phrases and places got their names, such as, is there an Old Zealand? OK, I'm starting to sound like Andy Rooney. And referencing Andy Rooney makes me sound like Dennis Miller in front of a college crowd.

So as the Air Pacific flight 911 (yeah, tell me about it...felt real happy with that number!) descended upon Sydney, I couldn't help think what this land offered, and what Hemmingway, the bird watcher was up to in Fiji. Both seemed like a mystery, but it's all about solving those myteries and creating new adventures to blabber about on a Web site.