USA Tour, Spring 2024 - Day 1: Travel Day
Welcome
Yesterday we travelled from Auckland, New Zealand, to Los Angeles, USA.
My first breakfast of the tour was eaten aboard an Air New Zealand Boing 777-300ER, an aircraft that was rapidly approaching the western coastline of America after an overnight flight from nearer the bottom end of the Pacific Ocean. I had scored an upgrade to economy premium and was therefore enjoying the luxuries of extended legroom, , and even a folding cardboard menu from which to order my first meal of the day. Kauri Coast kumara fritters emerged from lower decks of the stewardess’s cart aboard a porcelain plate, spinach scrambled eggs, bacon, and slow-cooked tomato crowded into the same dish that contained the hot part of my meal. A bowl of seasonal fresh fruit was in the corner of my tray, ready to be dressed with a pottle of fresh’n’fruity simply strawberry yoghurt, and then a bowl of Vogel’s Café-style granola sat in the centre, providing texture and vitality. The finishing touch to this spread was a humble croissant, trying its hardest to stay fresh throughout this long Pacific crossing, and not quite making it.
Thirteen hours before the appearance of this breakfast we were on New Zealand’s State Highway 20A, anxiously peering out the windows of our taxi van to catch the LED display board on the side of the Mainfreight warehouse, hoping for a good omen to start this month long tour. “If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the blinds” – those were the eleven words we were given and we accepted each of them gratefully.
All of our luggage was accepted gratefully and processed by the airport, swallowed by a conveyor belt and digested in the guts of the facility, sorted and transported to our waiting aircraft. We headed through security which was pleasantly quiet, the experience only ruined by an unwitting Liz who had both her bags pulled to the side for close examination by the aviation security staff. Bribes are the only thing that work in these situations and we eventually moved on albeit with our wallets a bit thinner and lighter.
We took off at 8:30pm in the evening and spent twelve hours in the air, an overnight ocean crossing in darkness followed by a bright afternoon approach into Los Angeles under clear conditions. Air New Zealand must have skimped on their docking budget because there was a lengthy walk from the gate to customs, but thankfully the arrival hall was empty and we missed out on the hour-long queues we were used to. The baggage hall was also fairly quiet which made it all the more shocking to find a number of upturned smartecarte®s, a vandalism act by a faceless coward, certain to go unpunished.
Outside the terminal our transport was waiting, a large, black Mercedes Benz Sprinter with a driver in a tight black suit, eager to pack our equipment into the back in a teetering, haphazard arrangement. He ducked and dove the van through the afternoon traffic, changing lanes with fluency and finesse as he mashed the accelerator repeatedly to the floor. We headed first to the storage unit to drop off our equipment and found several large packages waiting for us, boxes that Jonathan gleefully ripped open to examine the brand new audio gear inside. Our days of hiring in in-ear-monitor rigs are now over thanks to a rather expensive acquisition, and Jon will be entering his happy place for the next couple of weeks as he studies and eventually masters these complex pieces of technology.
We let him have a small preliminary tinker before locking up the storage room and heading for the hotel, all of us more than ready to finish up a long day of travel. It was a Mid-Century high rise on Wiltshire Boulevard, in Koreatown, that we arrived at, and it turned out that this building had comfortable rooms with quite a breath-taking view to the north, floor to ceiling windows that looked up at the Hollywood Hills beyond a sea of palm trees and apartment buildings. The Breakfast and Travel Updates Hotel of the Year award is not one that gets handed out lightly, but this Los Angeles hotel pleased me so thoroughly that I felt confident enough to lock in this decision in April, the fourth month of the year. The room layout took advantage of the huge window and the bed faced outwards, a perfect spot to relax and read while enjoying the sunset. Behind the bed a wide concrete desk doubled as the headboard and provided a business centre equipped with both USB and Ethernet - enough bandwidth to power a whole website. The bathroom is unashamed wall to wall luxury, beginning with a solid brass toilet paper holder, fully loaded, the unconventional but handsome right-angle fold deployed instead of the isosceles we are all used to. A brass faucet at the basin matches the articulated triple towel hanger in the shower and also the brass shower head, a handsome design equipped with a flow adjustment mechanism that looks like it has already withstood the test of time.
Art corner rears its ugly head early in this season of travel updates and I am delighted to be able to share this confronting sculpture, one of several similar works that graced the hotel lobby in the form of chandeliers, asking the age old question: when does rubbish become art? And also – is this recycling? And if so is art a feasible and sustainable method of recycling?
