Departure

North America » United States » California » Los Angeles
July 20th 2006

Published: August 5th 2006

LAX
At about 3:30 am, it was time to start packing, so although everyone was wasted, the reality started setting in that we would be away for 5 weeks. After everything was packed, we walked everything over to Tumbleweed’s to get my car, and we threw everything in. Keith decided to come along to be the navigator, because I had no idea where or how to get to LAX. We left, and it was all I could do to stay awake and to drive in straight lines. I wasn’t just totally fucked up by any means -I’ve driven drunk plenty of times and know what I’m doing, as shitty as that is- but I wasn’t going to pass a breathalyzer if I were to get pulled over. That would have been especially unfortunate the night before we left; so I was concentrating the very best I could. After being on the 405 for about 40 minutes, I asked Keith if we were going the right way. No response; I looked over at him, and he was passed out. My fucking navigator was passed out. We slapped him around a bit and finally got him to mumble out the rest of the directions. It was a pretty funny moment; I’m just glad he didn’t throw up in the car or anything. We finally got to LAX, which is like a small fucking city, I shit you not. We pulled up to the gates where the girls were supposed to go, and it was then that I realized how crazy everything was at the moment. There were lines of people OUTSIDE on the sidewalk next to where you drive through the airport, where they were I guess getting their bags checked. There was a small area where you could park and unload all of your shit; I pulled in, and was astonished to see how hectic everything was, even at 5:30 am. It seemed like you were supposed to just park real quick, throw your loved ones out the car, say “good luck assholes”, and speed off. I parked, and Keith stayed in the car while we walked our girlfriends to the line. The goodbye was okay, Jacky did good and didn’t cry, which was a relief, because that would have made me feel terrible. We had a pretty long goodbye, got one last glimpse of our beautiful girlfriends, and were on our way back to the apartment.

LAX…AGAIN
We crashed pretty hard when we got back to the apartment, after a badass Jack In the Box breakfast. We slept until noon, and Danny and I began repacking our bags and getting ready to leave. We met up in Irvine at Alex’s family’s house, where his beautiful little sister, Ashley (or Mimi, as we all call her) was waiting to have lunch with us. We didn’t want to hit traffic on The 405, so we decided to get something quick. We dropped by her mom’s work to say hi, because I hadn’t seen her in a while also. It was good to see my aunt again, and I made a promise to stay at her house when we get back from Australia. We ate across the street at McDonald’s for lunch; what an appropriate last meal to eat before leaving the country, eh?

After lunch, we drove to LAX, where we were supposed to meet at the La Quinta Inn for ISV Orientation. I handed my keys over to Mimi, who was taking care of my truck while I’m in Australia.

ORIENTATION
We arrived at the orientation, where there were maybe 60 other people from all over the country. About half were going to New Zealand, and the other half to Australia. Everyone was pretty stoked, but they seemed tired because they had been traveling all day to get to Los Angeles. Fuck that, Danny and I had been in LA for a while now, partying it up every day; and we were the ones that were wide awake and stoked. Everyone there seemed pretty young too…everyone we talked to were 18-20 years old. Danny and I were the grandfathers of the group. After a few cheesy exercises to build teamwork and to get to know each other and shit, we finally got down to business. We watched a 10 minute video that was like a long advertisement for ISV -which seemed a bit excessive, seeing as we are already joined and committed- and then were given a talk from the founder of ISV, an Australian sounding, older dude with a lot of energy. He told us a few of the more important rules -be safe, don’t do drugs (yea right- and he basically told us how good of a time we were going to have. I had already planned on having a good time, so that part seemed redundant as well. After what seemed like forever just sitting in our chairs and listening to people talk to us, they finally gave us our tickets, and sent us on our way.

LAX…AGAIN…AGAIN
Our respective flight didn’t leave until 11:40 that night, which meant that we were to board at 10:40, which mean that Danny and I had a lot of time to kill. We got a quick bite to eat, smoked a lot of cigarettes (15 hour flight with no smoking? You better believe I smoked a shitload), and, of course, hit up the bar. In the span of a couple hours, we rang up a $94 bar tab. It was a good time. On the way to the gate, we asked a Qantas Airways representative (that’s the airline we were taking) if we could use Australian dollars on the plane to buy booze, because we had already converted all the cash we had to Australian dollars. They informed us that drinks were free of charge on the plane. We responded with a shit-eating grin and a vow to take full advantage of the free drink policy.

THE FLIGHT
We boarded onto the plane, and had center aisle seats. Danny’s seats were one row ahead of mine, so he traded with the kid that was sitting next to me. We got settled in, sat through the whole safety routine shit, and were off to Australia. We chatted with the people around us for a while, and I don’t even remember passing out, but I did. Sometime after that, the air steward woke me up to see if I wanted to eat. I was in a daze when I woke up -first of all, since when do you wake somebody up in an airplane to serve them food?- and the dude said in a thick Australian accent, “Roast Chicken or Beef Stroganoff?” I said “No thanks, I’m cool”, but the guy would have none of that; “Are you sure sir? The next meal is not served until breakfast. That is 7 hours away. You must eat, bloke.” “Fuck it, then, chicken. And a bourbon and coke, stat.” After forcing down the chicken, I passed out, still holding my bourbon and coke over the tray table. I woke up a few minutes later, because I had spilt some of it all over the tray table. I had spilt just enough to where the drink was right to the edge of the tray table, but didn’t spill over, so that any sudden movement or jolt would have spilt it. I glanced around, and everyone around me was asleep, so I couldn’t get any help. Plus, if I were to wake Danny up to help me, he would have given me a lot of shit. Fuck that. There weren’t even any stewardesses in sight; what a situation. After what seemed like forever of me just sitting there as still as possible, a steward finally appeared; I waved him over, and he got me a towel to clean my shit up with…disaster averted.

The entire flight was about 15 or so hours, and I must have slept 11-12 hours of it. After so many days of getting no sleep and partying, I really needed that sleep.

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