Relative visiting (again)

Wow – another long break between posts, and so much to write about. Looks like I’ll slowly catch up on old posts…

I visited my relatives in the US/Canada in June. Due to the vagaries of airfares, it was cheaper for me to fly to New York and use redemption tickets for the rest of the journey. As a result, my trip was as follows:
Sydney – New York – Toronto – Vancouver – San Francisco – Toronto – New York - Sydney. Since it was my first trip as a Star Gold, I was looking forward to exploring the various lounges I now had access to.

As this was a relative visiting trip, there was not much sightseeing done, so there won’t be too many mentions of interesting places.

Sydney – New York (with detour)

I checked in early, and made my way to the designated lounge, the Air New Zealand Koru Club Lounge. The lounge was spacious, and had a large bar, food buffet and had plenty of seating. Since it was lunchtime, the buffet had sandwiches, salads, Beef in Oyster Sauce, as well as individual bowls of lamb or chicken with rice. Additionally, there were cheese & crackers, and other snacks available.

I had lunch, and caught up on the news while waiting for the flight to depart.

The flight to San Francisco was another typical United flight – functional, and if you go in with low expectations, pretty good. Dinner was either chicken & rice, or beef with potatoes. As is typical these days, the movie selection was nothing to write home about, so I managed to sleep for a bit in between a mid flight snack.

In a departure from previous flights, a bar was set up at the back where soft drinks, water, pretzels and other snacks were set out. Not surprisingly, there were quite a few people hanging around the area, stretching as well as rehydrating.

About 90 minutes before landing, breakfast was served. The choice was either scrambled egg with sausage/potatoes, or yoghurt/fruit platter.


Going through immigration at San Francisco was, as usual, painless, and I was soon on my way to wait for my connecting flight.

While waiting, I went to the domestic Red Carpet Club, which was spacious, but rather plain. Compared to the Koru Club, there was less variety, with packaged cheese & crackers, as well as granola bars, and celery/carrot sticks with dipping sauce on offer. Knowing that economy class flights in the US were pretty no frills, and any food would have to be either brought on board, or bought onboard, I ate at the food court in the terminal before boarding.

Upon arriving at the gate, I was paged and given a new boarding pass – I had been operationally upgraded to Business Class, which meant that apart from actually getting a meal, I would have a better seat which allowed me to get more sleep. This was important, as by the time the plane left, I was feeling like I should be really asleep, if not getting up for the next day.

Lunch was served shortly after takeoff, and started with warmed nuts. This was followed by a Smoked Salmon appetizer, salad, and a choice of mains:

Scallops with soy beans, tofu and Soba salad

Roast chicken with tomato sauce, beans and asparagus

Baked pasta with tomato & cream sauces

This was followed by a choice of ice cream or fruit.

I chose the scallops, and they weren’t bad.

After lunch, and feeling very tired, I reclined the seat and went to sleep. I awoke with about an hour to go to a message that JFK was closed due to a thunderstorm, and we would be diverting to Boston, where we would pick up some fuel, and be ready to take off when the airport reopened.

We landed in Boston around 10pm, and went to a gate, where the plane was refueled, and repairs made to a toilet seat in economy. We were told that JFK was reopened, and took off around 11pm for a 1 hour flight to JFK.

The flight to JFK was uneventful, and we landed close to 12:30am, and headed towards our gate. Things were looking good until we hit taxiway G (or taxiway Golf). As the airport was closed earlier, there was a backlog of departures as well as arrivals. Since departures were using the runway which the arriving planes needed to cross to reach the terminal, the arrivals had to wait for the departures to clear a bit before being allowed to reach the terminal. One feature United has is the ability to listen to Air Traffic Control, which was very handy this night/morning. In the 90-ish minutes stuck on the ground, there were some amusing stories between the various flights and JFK ground control, such as the Cathay Pacific flight being stuck on the apron for 3+ hours, trying to get to the gate, the Delta flight which needed to get back to the gate as someone on board was sick and required an ambulance, and the constant questions, such as “How much longer will we be stationary for?”

After watching planes both big & small take off for a couple of hours, we were finally allowed to taxi to our gate, and deboard. Going from where we were to the terminal (ie from taxiway G to taxiway VA), we could see a very long line of planes waiting to take off, and the line stretched for kilometers. Between landing and getting to the hotel for the night too the best part of 2.5 hours, and I was well and truly ready to fall asleep when I walked into the room.

New York – Toronto

I used some frequent flyer points for the NY – Toronto flights, and this flight wasn’t too special. This was an American Eagle flight (which meant flying on a regional jet), and since this was a 1 hr flight, there was really only time for drinks before landing, and round 1 of relative visiting.

Toronto – Vancouver

After spending a couple of days with one lot of relatives, it was time to spend time with more relatives, including my Maternal Grandmother, which was one reason for the trip.

After being dropped off at the airport and checking in, it was time to visit the Domestic Maple Leaf Lounge at Toronto airport. This lounge took up quite a bit of the top floor of the terminal, and there was a large area where newspapers were available, as well as food & drink. As I was on a morning flight, the breakfast spread was out. This was a Continental breakfast spread, and included bread for toast, cereal, yoghurt, tea, coffee etc.

Eventually, it was time to go to the gate and board, and I found out that there was an aircraft switch from an old 767 to a refurbished A321, with on demand audio & video, and inseat power, which meant that the flight would pass by quicker. Sure enough, after the initial drinks service & food sale, everyone on the plane started to watch TV, and the 5 hour flight passed by quickly, and we arrived in Vancouver roughly on time.

Vancouver – San Francisco

After the second round of relative visiting, it was time for round 3, with a lunchtime flight to San Francisco. After pre-clearing US immigration, I visited the Transborder Maple Leaf Lounge (which is marked as the International lounge on the map). This lounge is smaller than the domestic lounge in Toronto, but is still spacious, and as this was an afternoon flight, there was soup (chicken noodle) and salad out, as well as chips and a wide selection of drinks. I took the opportunity to have some soup and chips while watching Germany beat Portugal in Euro 2008, as well as using the free Wi-Fi available.

Again, this flight was routine, with a drinks + food for sale service followed by everyone watching TV, before a final drinks service before landing.

San Francisco

Although this was round 3 of relative visiting, I did manage to visit a couple of museums:

The Intel Museum, which focused on the history of Intel. There wasn't too much to see here, but was ok.

The Computer History Museum, which was much more interesting. This museum, as the name suggests, concentrated on the history of computing, and contained many old/historical computers, and was very interesting, and well worth a couple of hours to explore.

San Francisco – Calgary – Toronto

As previously mentioned, I had redeemed frequent flyer points for these tickets. One consequence was that there were no non stop flights available for San Francisco – Toronto, hence this routing. Again, the flights were routine, except that the Calgary – Toronto flight wasn’t long enough for any meaningful sleep.

However, I did manage to visit the Calgary Maple Leaf Lounge and unsurprisingly at 10:30pm, was deserted. There were vegie chips, and cheese/crackers as a nightcap, and seeing a remote control, had a flick around to see what was on.

Toronto – New York

Another early morning, another flight, except this time, it meant that I was going home. Again, due to this being an award flight, there was only 1 feasible choice of flight to NY – one with a 6:50am departure. It would be a long day.
3:30am: Wake up call
4:00am: Depart hotel for airport
4:30am: Arrive at airport
4:45am: Check in for flight
4:50am: Join queue for US pre-clearance
5:20am: Pre clear US immigration
5:30am: Arrive at gate, buy paper etc
6:20am: Board flight, and sit next to a scriptwriter which was heading to NY to meet with an actor (whose name I can't remember)
6:50am: Leave gate
8:30am: Arrive in NY

New York

Since I had to get between La Guardia & JFK airports, I had 2 options: Direct, or via a whirlwind tour of New York City. Since my luggage was with my relatives in San Francisco (where I would check my luggage in during my time in transit there later that day), the choice was easy.

From La Guardia, I caught the M60 bus and changed to the 3 subway to Bowling Green, where there was a waterfall exhibition which had recently opened, so there were a few photos taken, as well as the Statue of Liberty, which was relatively close. From there, it was a walk to the WTC site and Wall Street. As an aside, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed on the day I was there (June 27, 2008) at 11 346.51, which was 25.57% higher than the low of 8 451.19 on October 10, but that’s for another day.

From Wall St, it was a short subway ride to Times Square, where the Naked Cowboy was there, and the Nissin Cup Noodles sign wasn’t. Then a short walk to the Ed Sullivan Theater, and Rockefeller Centre. By this time, it was getting towards lunchtime, and Katz’s Deli was a highly recommended place for lunch. After having a chicken noodle soup & ½ Pastrami sandwich, I would have to agree.

By this time, it was getting towards 1pm, and with the flight leaving at 3:30, I would have to get to the airport, so it was the subway to 34th St, and the Long Island Railroad from Penn Station to Jamaica and the Airtrain to JFK.

New York – Sydney

After checking in, it was time to visit the JFK Red Carpet Club which was smaller then the one in San Francisco, but this lounge had a better range of snacks (such as chips & shortbread).
As is normal with JFK departures, it took the best part of an hour between pushback & takeoff, which meant that there was plenty of time to listen to the person sitting next to me (who was a game programmer or something) and the kid in the aisle seat (who sounded like a spoilt brat) yak on about random subjects. After takeoff, I managed to spend most of the flight immersed in a Sudoku book, and had enough time after landing to find my relatives, check my bags, clear security and spend some time at the International Red Carpet Club, which was bigger then the domestic club, and had roughly the same selection of food & drink. After spending a lot of time checking email, it was time to go, or so I thought. Arriving at the gate, we were told that the plane would be delayed for 30 minutes to allow a large group (20+) make their connection from (where else) Las Vegas. While that meant that we would be taking off later, it also meant that I would actually celebrate a part of my birthday (assuming I could stay awake).

Eventually, we all boarded and took off about 35 minutes late. Dinner was served promptly after takeoff, and was a choice of either 3 types of pasta ways in a cream/tomato sauce (which was fairly standard), or beef with potatoes. After dinner, for the first time (most likely due to exhaustion after being up for 24 hours straight), I slept the whole way to breakfast about 2 hours out from Sydney. Breakfast was apple filled pancakes with sausage, or cheese omelette. Applying rule #1 of airline breakfasts (avoid breakfasts with egg), I went for the pancakes, which again were functional. After breakfast and a tidy up, we were arriving back in Sydney, and we flew over the airport before making a 270 and landing.

That was a very hectic trip, but well worth it. However, I think the next trip will be a bit less hectic.