LAX/SLC/YYC

Someone (other than Kat's dad) from Qantas must be reading the blog, as this time the service from check-in to disembarkation was exemplary.

Perhaps they put their best people on the lucrative AU to LAX route, or maybe it's the sight of me in a polo shirt that really gets the staff going..... I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Thanks must as usual go out to Mark for the super-cheap fares. I think this might be a different flavour of posting if we'd had to fly cattle class. Moo.

So our first taste of the USA was the 3 hours spent clearing customs and getting checked in to our connecting flight. SOMEONE decided to roll her eyes and get shirty with the customs officer, who asked whether she "had a problem with that". Thankfully we just had to fill some different forms out. Never mind.

Strangely, I'm going to go out on a huge limb here and say that in Australia we do the "self serve check-in" a whole hell of a lot better than Delta Airlines at least. The software was confusing, required swiping of passports, and there most certainly NOT a surfeit of air-conditioning. Bag scanning and loading was in a different place, and the queues to the gates were not very clearly marked - we stood in the wrong line for about 20 minutes, before getting to the front and realising we were in the wrong place.... Yay.

Anyhoo. Salt Lake city was uneventful, and I passed out from tiredness on the flight to Calgary. I awoke to flying over what looks like it could be a city of 100 million, but really only has just over 1. It's huge, as big as Melbourne, with 1/4 of the population. Oh well, makes for nice golf courses.

The weather's great, and catching up with Kat's family was also good. Of course we were well fed and boozed up, so by the time we arrived at Denis and Janet's place (Kat's cousin, and soon-to-be-wife-of-cousin) we were ready for a snooze....

This is already a bit long for most of you, so tomorrow I'll take some pictures and intersperse them with more words. Toodle-pip!