Tight seats and Charlotte sprint to LA

It’s 8AM and I am sitting in the home office of my cousin, which will be my room for the next few weeks. The house is in the north of LA County, Chatsworth.The sun is shining, its warm, but comfortable. Time to recap the flight.

Flight US705 No. #1

The first surprise was the really tight seats in the Airbus A330-300. US Airways tried to squeeze as much passengers as possible to the plane. For an 9 hours flight it was quite uncomfortable… The second surprise was the hot cabin. The captain announced they had problems with the gate air condition (“It doesn’t run efficient as it should”) and the plane was like S1 in rush hour. And he said, that Frankfurt Airport must shut down one runway, so there was a 45min delay. Ok, but I only have 1:25h in Charlotte to pass immigration, pick up my baggages, pass customs, re-check in luggage and pick up the flight to LA. He promised, that they don’t need so much time as planned for the flight. The first good news since I took my seat. To tell you this: The plane was right in schedule in Charlotte.

Nine hours is a long time. Of course, I was well prepared. I put tons of music and radio plays on the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. On request by the crew I switched of the device due take-off. But you remember the 45 minute delay? So we was allowed to use our devices again. But my N810 won’t boot again. Or to be precisely: It boot until 100% and then reboot infinitely. So I couldn’t tweet about the mess or chat or do the other unimportant stuff. While I was frustrated the crew served cold water and opened all doors to let flow a bit of fresh air inside. But after we leaved the gate and the AC was running by the planes engine everything was fine.

There was a life before N810 and so there should be other stuff to pass time. Nhung borrowed me a nice book Life of Pi by Yann Martel and there was of course the entertainment system on each seat. But here is the next obstacle. The use double mono TRS-Jack instead one stereo TRS-Jack for the headphones. Why using standards if you can sell people cheap headphones for five bucks? I used my mobile headphones and the one of the N810 to enjoy X-Men Origins: Wolverine in stereo (as far as you can enjoy such cheesy movie).

Next to me sat a mechanical engineer, who is working for German company in US. He was going to North Carolina to train workers with their machines. His boss was in the same plane, but in business class.

Charlotte Douglas Airport (CLT)

As I mentioned before we arrived in Charlotte on time. I was a bit late in the row. But with chance and help of few people I could push a bit forward in line. The immigration officer was really nice and friendly. She welcomed me with “Hello, how are you?”. I know, this means nothing, its just courtesy, but it suggest a total different atmosphere then the barking of other border authorities I remember. She just ask me few standard question (Where, Why, How long…). The only special question was, when I was in Iran last time. Fingerprints, photos, that’s all. No luggage checking, mass storage introspection or technical device seizing. To all my paranoid nerd-friends: Crypto disc up ya ass…

I passed immigration at 4:05PM. Check-in for my connection was until 4:10PM. I grabbed my Backpack from the baggage claim, but where was the suitcase borrowed by my mother. Do you now how many people travel with similar looking black suitcases? OK, sure. I will miss the flight, but why going crazy now? If I miss the connection I will have enough time for panic. And normally they put you in the next plane for free. So, I didn’t worry about departure times much and tried to recognize the suitcase. My great mum add colored cords to the suitcase and explained me that. After ages I saw the cords, grabbed the suitcase and go fast to the customs. Behind me was a girl, who asked me if I want the plane to LA, too. We gave the customs form to the officer in a manner of relay race and run to the re-checkin. The guy was really nice and told us to run to Gate B14. The connection was delayed, but just for few minutes. We run as fast as we could to B14 and caught the plane just in time.

Flight US705 No. #2

The Airbus 320 to Los Angeles International was much more comfortable then sardine can before. From Charlotte the planes leaved in small intervals, it was like the Berlin airlift. The flight wasn’t special I looked at the huge landscape during the flight and tried to sleep. Just for fun I turned on my GPS receiver (eTrex). The plane was moving with 870km/h with 11km altitude. They didn’t served any vegetarian sandwich, so I kept my bucks. The only interesting thing was the stewardess, who squashed the soda cans with hand.

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

In Los Angeles everything was easy, because it was a domestic flight. Everything would be fine, if the hadn’t forget to transport my suitcase to LA. Fingers crossed they will deliver it to Sepidehs house today, as promised. Sepideh and Kevin picked me up. While Kevin was waiting in the car, she helped me to complain about the missing luggage. At least I have my backpack with my clothes. The family must wait for their gifts. Sepideh suspected the airport employees took the suitcase because of the tons of German chocolate inside…

San Fernando Valley

It was really nice and cool to meet Sepideh again. And it was a pleasure to meet Kevin first time, of course. They took me to an nice vegetarian Asian restaurant, Garden Wok (6117 Reseda Blvd, Tarzana). The food was really delicious. They “pork”, “chicken” etc. but all made with Soy wheat and other stuff. My recommendation: vegan cream cheese wong tongs and chicken sweet sour.

And finally (at 9.30PM or so) we arrived at their home. From the outside it’s yellow with nice garden and a stars spangled banner, but inside there are Persian carpets, a cute mix. There I met Ame Mahin (Aunt Mahin) again. She was really happy and it was nice to met her after so long time again. I am looking forward to meet the other guys today.

Thanks for your time. I will upload and add some photos later.