AKL-LAX-LHR-YVR-AKL Part 3, LHR – YVR (Harlots and Cocaine)
May 6, 2017, 12:56 am
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: NZ
Programs: airpoints
Posts: 65
AKL-LAX-LHR-YVR-AKL Part 3, LHR – YVR (Harlots and Cocaine)
So, breakfast ended and it became time to go and check in. I attempted to check in at the Self-Service Kiosk but got a nasty shock…now this was a code share multi-city booking done entirely through the Air NZ website, the only leg that wasn’t on Air NZ was this LHR-YVR one which was Air Canada.
I am a Koru member and I have an extra bag allowance as a result, 2 x23kg. When the kiosk demanded 200 bucks to fly my nearly empty suit case (was going to fill it with First Nations Art in Vancouver) to YVR I thought there must be an error, so I went to check in with a skinny Indian girl who was suffering a bad attack of terminal lassitude (couldn’t give a damn in plain English). She just about summoned the energy to tell me I had to pay for the other bag, this did not please me and a heated discussion ensued.
Miss Lassitude decided that I should go and shout at the boss instead of her, which was unreasonable of her…at this point in the early morning even her breathing in and out seemed unreasonable and I was having a job keeping it together.
As a precaution I grabbed The Patient One (TPO) from his check in queue and told him to hang fire for a minute or two as I had to go and argue with someone.
That someone was an utter jerk too but he did explain that what Air NZ didn’t tell me was that my bag privileges did not extend to the code share leg and that really hacked me off!!! It should be made clear and it just isn’t good enough…not at 7am, not at 11am, it just isn’t!!!!
I told Mr Jerk that he was an idiot and asked to see his boss, he told me he was the boss and I told him he was not my favourite person and I was going to rearrange things.
He told me I couldn’t re-pack in the check in area and told him it would be extremely unwise to try to stop me.
I raced back to Miss Lassitude who was barely giving a damn enough to actually stay upright on her stool. My sister and her man saw me and, looking very concerned, asked what was wrong…I yelled something about Jerks and stormed off.
TPO arrived and I explained the plan, I was going to repack and give him my spare bag as his bag would fit the cabin baggage requirements and he could put my spare in as his checked bag but I needed to swap stuff between my main bag and the spare bag as I had just randomly chucked stuff in, assuming that both bags would come to Canada with me.
I was halfway through this hurried task when a knuckle-dragging mouth-breather in uniform approached me and (with one hand on what looked like a can of mace or a tazer) told me I couldn’t repack at the check-in counter.
He got told to back right off and had the sense to retreat…
Hand bag to TPO, take a biiiig breath, think of puppies and relaaaaaax…
Nobody wanted to look at me. Miss Lassitude, on the verge of a coma, somehow found the wherewithal to give me my boarding pass. I took it and found TPO, we met with Sis and her man for a quick debrief and a hug.
I was ready to go to Canada now.
The pair of us strolled into the x-ray and ritual humiliation area. It was light and airy with a feeling of busy about it, all around us people in uniforms decided who looked dodgy enough for the back-scatter machine and who looked dangerous enough to be let through unmolested.
Fat brown men with Saddam Hussein moustaches ran the show here and they were supervised by bitter, man-hating white lesbians who got a thrill out of not smiling and having no makeup. They all had their hair scraped back in a severe bun and I bet they all had Pitbull’s and made their girlfriends cry when they got home.
All I wanted to do was get to the giant shopping mall that sucked away your money while you waited for the call to the gate, I wanted to be away from officialdom and in the warm embrace of lovely Flight Attendants who only wanted to feed me and make me comfortable.
But before I could do that I had to take off my shoes and my belt and my watch and my copper bracelet and empty my pockets and strike an unnatural pose in the back-scatter radar booth (I hoped the Lesbians could see my gentleman's and that it revolted them) and then I had to put it all back on again and finally…..
All the angst drained out of me, I looked for somewhere to sit or better yet crap. I began to regain my composure mainly through not having the energy to be angry any more.
TPO joined me, we went and sat down, it said the Air Canada lounge was by invite only and I just couldn’t be bothered to argue.
We sat and just burbled to each other, we had both had a good time in the UK and achieved all our objectives bar casual sex with a stranger but that was probably for the best…well for TPO certainly.
Holy membranes I was tired, utterly drained and all I could hear was a buzzing in my ears apart from when I went to the toilet but that took everything I had…having fun is hard work but as the time to go to the gate arrived I snapped back into long-haul mode. I led TPO off on a purposeful walk to the gate, which was a very long way away.
So glad to be moving and very excited about meeting the Harlots!! Maybe I would see a bear (not that sort C Andrew Ewen…) or a Eagle or logs floating down a river!!
Before we headed underground we could see the Air Canada 777 at the gate, the other side of the runway. It was ice blue, a bit grubby but it was there, waiting for us, things were good, we were going to motherloving Canada!!
At the gate a lovely Asian Lady cracked jokes and made sure we all got into the correct queue, without any significant delays and with a cheeky lunge into an eddy in the line we were at the door, on the threshold of discovering what an Air Canada 777 looks like inside.
They are a bit bland to be honest, yes I am biased as I travel Air NZ as much as possible but there is a warm and inviting quality to Air NZ 777’s, yes it is still a sea of man-made materials but the way they are sculpted (Air NZ manufacture their own monoliths with Boeing’s blessing and so their interiors are unique) and the colours are very conducive to chilling the heck out over a Pinot Noir.
I understand that Canada is mainly lakes ‘n stuff and what isn’t lakes ‘n stuff is either Ice or a Bear and Canadians probably love their national 777 interiors but I found it uninviting although the blindingly white toilets did have a massive mirror which would make mile-high sex a better event on AC than Air NZ…I didn’t try it on this flight but I wouldn’t rule it out in future.
As we waited to complete all that stuff that happens before you can take off I groped my way through the IFE and was dismayed to find that all the entertainment, be it music, TV or films was Canadian and only about 5 possible selections in each category…now this rampant Xenophobia is to be expected on an Aussie carrier as it fits the crass jingoism and embedded marketing and shameless promotion that one expects from the less civilised side of the Tasman but for a PC and gentle race such as the Canadians?
I found it jarred my perception of the country and made me wonder about my impending hosts…would I be forced to listen to Canadian Bear hunter music? Eat only Canadian All-Bran? (I was as it turned out) Watch Canadian Sit-coms and pronounce “out” in that peculiar way that prevents Canadians from being spies and Ninjas….well you’ll have to keep reading to find out…
We eventually trundled out across the tarmac into full view of bearded men with brown shoes and rocket launchers, they referred to their ladybird book of infidel and decided that shooting down a Canadian plane would only score them 15 virgins and quick peek up the skirt of a Nun so they downed tools and carried on plotting to overthrow the civilised world until something more profane came into view.
With a heave on the Fly by Wire we launched skyward and I watched London recede below us…I was very tired and very relived to be heading for somewhere I had never been and about to meet a couple I have known for 11 years but never met (although a colleague of mine has) and yet still counted them among my best friends…not sure what they think of me but they seem to like me. All that may change in the next 10 hours I thought.
Trouble is, the me you read about is the me inside my head mostly, in real life a lot of the twisted view on life is under the surface, I may seem distracted, bored or even dead but rest assured a lot is going down in the mental processing department.
My biggest fear was that I would prove an anti-climax, a disappointment and in my state of perpetual jet-lag on this trip that was quite likely…
I watched the map of England (OK and Wales and Scotland…don’t go all Europe on me) and monitored our progress out over the Atlantic towards the coast of Greenland. I had a snooze, a poo and something to eat that was made in Canada and played the Canadian national anthem when you opened the lid…I thought of Mounties who always get their man, which reminded me of the YMCA for reasons best left undisclosed and got used to the ambience of the aircraft…it started to make sense, an ANZ interior reminds you of NZ and clearly Canada was going to be clean and a bit Spartan with a lot of light blue stuff.
I woke from a snooze and casually watched the stunning posterior of an AC Flight Attendant (female) do the “C-D hips” as she waltzed up the aisle between rows C and D if you need it explaining to you, handing out little pots of ice cream…with that arse and that ice cream I resolved to get the Captain to marry us at once.
But then I looked out of the window and gasped! We were approaching the coast of Greenland and there was nothing green about it…the sea was still and blue and the land was white, with black rocks sticking out and azure pools of meltwater randomly pooling or whatever it does…Holy fridge magnets Batman!!! It was stunning!!!
I leapt out (oat?) of my seat and blundered to the back door to gaze upon the beauty below.
A bay sat in the surreal sunlight, corralling an iceberg in a sea of perfect blue…I stared transfixed…I was lost in the wonder of it all and my mind drifted down 39,000 feet to the unfolding scene below me…I was every explorer that ever got frostbite, I was in overload because all my favourite places on the planet are untouched by man (or woman, yes Milly Tant, or woman) and this was the most pristine of all that I had seen so far.
Mrs Jafa, being a Cockney Townie and an utter Philistine would have muttered, “Yeah, snow, whatever” but I was babbling inside and occasionally to the people who had also cottoned on to the beauty of it all…. I didn’t need IFE, I had ICE!!!!
My camera clicked furiously I was torn between recording the scene digitally and soaking it up viscerally and emotionally, I didn’t want to miss a thing, wanted to own it, love it and keep that feeling inside me forever.
So far I have managed it.
I watched the whole of Greenland pass below and nearly wet myself with joy, I had to go and sit down while we flew over the sea and try to get some much needed sleep but it didn’t happen, I was high on reflected light and ice cream, I knew I was going to be a mess by the time I got to Canada but the ADHD was in full swing.
Eventually I got control of my faculties and chilled for a while but the urge to see what the centre toilets looked like was too strong and I went for a jaunt.
The view out of the centre doors got my attention….a vast area of lakes ‘n stuff!!! Innumerable lakes, acres of ‘n stuff….masses and masses of wilderness…this was all green and blue, stunning in its nothingness and breath-taking in its vastness…I got high on nature all over again!
Drooling out the window got me suspicious looks from returning Canadians who are used to a more restrained approach to lakes ‘n stuff (and bears ‘n stuff…and bear stuff) and I could imagine them tut-tutting at my unrestrained joy and general overawed-ness.
So yeah, it all got a bit much and I had to go and sit down and try to rest because I should have been asleep but it was all too much and the quality of the light was like speed and I just wanted to run up and down like a small boy in a supermarket but that would get me on a list at Mountie HQ so I tried to sleep and ended up just watching the map.
Canada!!!!! OMG we were on the descent and heading down through the clouds to Vancouver and I was pressed against the window like an inquisitive Goldfish who had eaten too many Skittles and then…the clouds parted and I saw exactly what I had prayed for…a barge towing logs down the river!!!!!!
I saw trees that were still in the ground and more logs and then the airport and no bears but I was here, well a thousand feet above “here” and although it was a bit overcast it looked nice enough and my excitement rose to fever pitch…I was about to meet the Harlots!!!
I nearly took a chill pill but decided that was probably going to stop my heart what with the jet-lag and all so I just composed myself because I still had to get TPO into the transit lounge and off to Auckland before seeing if I would be allowed into the country.
We landed and life went into slow motion again in that way it always does after a long-haul flight as people tried to work out how to walk again, found their bags in the overhead and panicked because customs declaration cards always make you feel like a criminal.
Staggering into the terminal we followed the signs and progressed along an elevated corridor that took us past what looked like a rockery on the floor below and exciting views of ice blue planes with maple leaves on their tails…some looked a bit dirty…must be the French influence.
TPO and I came to a fork in the road and our destinies, I was about to head down some stairs, past some cool First Nations Art and into the massive arrivals hall to meet my fate and TPO had to head right and into the Transit Area (he got excited because he thought it would be full of Ford Transit vans and he likes those) and make his peace with his maker before embarking on what turned out to be 14 hours of abject misery.
Let’s tell that story briefly…TPO isn’t a drama queen like me so it may not quite tell like the epic it was but the guts of it is that a storm cell over Hawaii was causing a few disturbances in the force and not only was it rock n roll to the point that the overhead bins opened and disgorged a torrent of whatever it is people carry in their hand luggage (dried fish if you are on a AKL-HKG flight) onto people’s heads.
The weather was so bad that the flight had to land in Fiji to refuel because it had been battering into a head wind…that and I think the weather in NZ was so bad that the alternate to AKL was SYD at the time.
This was not a problem as TPO had never been to Fiji and found it all a bit of a lark.
We shook hands and I left him to his fate and for the next few days he was to me as Schrodinger’s Cat, possibly dead until I opened the box and found him alive.
I took my time descending into the boarding area, partly because there was a lot to take in and partly because a very pretty lady with a clingy dress was in front of me and after 9.5 hours of ice and lakes ‘n stuff (and Canadian Country and Western) it was a change of scenery for me and as I felt like a grubby, unwashed, dirty old man I thought I would act like one.
The queue snaked through the tensa-barriers but the novelty of standing on real ground meant time passed in a daze and I eventually found myself at the desk of an astoundingly pretty young woman who might have been Athabascan or I might have just made that up but the First Nations blood that ran through her veins made her very exotic and sturdy but curvy (like the hot one in Flying Wild Alaska) and I fell in love for the tenth time on this trip and the fact that she was in uniform just made it even more erotically charged.
Despite being an obvious nutter she made small talk with me and asked me what I was doing in Canada…I refrained from telling the truth because doing a multi-stop long-haul to visit people you have never met will get you locked up and your bumps felt in the 21st Century…probably at any time since the first human ever smuggled a lick of ganga across a border in fact.
So I lied and said I was a tourist and had come to see some bears, she gave me a look and I said…no, the big hairy sort…she gave me another look…they have fur and big claws and eat your picnic…she relaxed and decided I was just another idiot honky tourist and waved me through.
But then I was a total retard and told the truth to the customs dude via the little cardboard customs declaration!!!
“Oh noes, I has a Bovril…..”
Well ľ of a kilo of the stuff to be exact, all brown and ready to be spread on toast, from a Tesco’s in Naaaaaridge to be precise.
Well you know what, Bovril ist verboten in the land of lakes ‘n stuff and the customs guy held one of the jars at arm’s length, like he had just found a dirty book in a school desk.
He made those “we gonna burn this mofo and not even give you the box back” noises.
Oh dear, The Boy would be so disappointed, he had specifically asked for them and I had even sent him a pic of them from Tesco’s car park as lightning crashed about the English summer skies.
“I have an idea” I told the guy above the crackle from his radio (somebody, somewhere had a piece of non-native sawdust in his pocket and the hit squad were onto him) “This stuff is totally legal in NZ (lies, damn lies!) how about I leave it here and pick it up on Tuesday?”
“Wait now” he said and lumbered off with my contraband to see if he could get a head-kick in on the sawdust guy.
I stood about and felt lonely, the carpet was stained with the tears of a thousand unintentional smugglers who had been relieved of everything from a live Crocodile to a necklace from Chernobyl made of radioactive broad beans.
I picked my nose and wondered if The Harlots were already up at the observation deck, wondering if I was just delayed or a work of fiction?
My rugged antagonist returned, carrying the Bovril jars as if they had just yelled “Durka, Durka Jihad!!!’ and unfurled a black flag.
He smiled “Fill in this 327-page form in triplicate and we will store the jars here for you if you can guarantee they are unopened.”
I assured him that they were and the evil beef-beasties would not be hitching a ride on his socks prior to wriggling inside the ear of his darling wife (or husband, this is Canada after all) and turn them into a bovine zombie with Friesian eyes by morning.
Lol! He was in more danger than he would ever know….
So after being given instructions as to where my Bovril could be retrieved in a few days’ time I headed off to the obs deck, pausing only to buy Mrs Jafa some Canadian salted chocolate and look for a phone charger because mine was on the point of being dumped unceremoniously into the hold of a 777 ….well they might actually have all been having a potlach over the thrill of loading Jafa39’s Samsung charger onto the Air NZ 777.
I dunno, I could imagine the conversation “Jafa39 has insulted my culture more than yours!” “Oh no he hasn’t, he once said the French were all descended from the accidental mating of a Chimpanzee prostitute from Riems and a Wild Boar”…”Close my friend but Mr Jafagee once described all Indian men as a walking TB epidemic….that is very insulting isn’t it!” “You should hear what he had to say about Chinese tourists!” said Lu Fung Yip with a knowing flourish “he said we had the collective IQ of a retarded barn rat! It makes me feel so velly special!”)
Where was I?
“Ooh yes! I know, I know! Pick me!”
I was having a poo in my first experience of Canadian sanitary plumbing and it was marvellous and I forgot to tell you that I got my bag from the carousel before I went to the customs guy but none of that matters because I went up an escalator and wandered through the obs deck.
I had received a couple of Facebook messages from Scarlet Harlot telling me they were not far away...in universal terms the Andromeda Galaxy isn’t far away so in my jet-lagged and excited state it wasn’t much help.
I sat down, at a small table by a burger joint, A&W I think it was and as they are my real-world initials I was happy to be there, all keyed up for the momentous meeting.
I watched and waited and then as the actual moment of their arrival eerrmm arrived, it was almost an anti-climax…I knew them so well from exchanging messages on Aviation websites and Farcebook, I was so tuned into who they were that it felt like meeting a friend who just popped out to buy a pack of smokes.
My head didn’t explode, nobody cried, rockets weren’t launched, Scarlet just handed me a Boeing hat and we went to get a burger like it was the most natural thing in the world for people who had never met but had known each other for 11 years.
Of course they might have been wetting themselves with joy but they didn’t say anything, we just got on with our lives like old friends and that was what was truly staggering about the experience…it felt so normal, we didn’t need to make a big deal of it and I probably didn’t need the root beer and burger but as we sat at the table, me trying very hard to behave (God knows why, they read this drivel that I write) but I do remember a feeling of relief, I had crossed the Rubicon, we had touched each other’s flesh and there is no way back from this point.
Mind you, by the time we had reached the USA Canada border Mr Harlot was in panic mode lest I get us all searched lol!
That comes later, we had to do driving first, provided Mr Harlot could find the car and with heroic remembering he found the big SUV and we set off for Seattle, or at least a secret part of Seattle where they live and which I cannot divulge….Snohomish to be exact….which is out in the wop-wops where bears come into your garden and poo on your lawn.
Starting out down the highway to the Canada/US border Scarlot Harlot pointed out things of interest to direct my gaze as I took in the whole scene with an inward “ Canada! Yay, I’m in Canada!!!” she showed me Bald Eagles that made nests on big power pylons and other natural wonders (no bears though) and we laughed and joked our way to the border, pausing only to stop in White Rock to buy Tim Bits and use the bathroom.
Tim Bits are tiny Tim Horton’s donut things and they come in many splendid flavours…I was gagging to eat them and we did just that, the ones with a sort of icing on the outside were my favourites and I resolved to eat as many as possible on this journey.
The Harlots are frighteningly organised, they were consulting an app that told them how long the queues were on the various border crossing points and although they have special cards that let them in pronto, me being a Gringo, would delay their passage (All-Bran can fix that) so we would be vulnerable to the vagaries of the border types with their guns and “Get on the ground” mindsets.
There is a stone edifice that marks the border between sanity and the USA, so Scarlet and I got out and played around on it, a fellow traveller waiting in the queue took a pic of us on my phone, which, knowing what I found out a few minutes later, wasn’t a smart move, it could have got us searched.
I had been cracking lame jokes about having a kilo of Cocaine hidden up my butt for most of the journey but as we sat, half an SUV in Canada and the other half officially in the USA but still not through the border guards, I was referring to it again and Mr Harlot got a bit stern with me.
“Don’t say that! They have listening devices!”
“Ooops! Really?”
“Yes really, and don’t point at anything or touch anything or we will get pulled over and searched”
Now this is a real problem because I talk with my hands (French blood) and so I had to sit on them and try not to actually say anything because Mr Harlot did not want to have the SUV dismantled because a maverick gringo pointed at something…and I for one do not blame him one little bit, what with this being the 21st century and all and having seen what happens at inspection points (remember LAX and the drunk dude?).
We took a bet on which queue would move fastest and Mr Harlot, being the perfect host decided to take my pick and that was the wrong one so we lost 3 car lengths and I could feel his pain (watch Canadians playing ice hockey if you want to know how competitive they are lol!).
A lady in uniform (oh my, I was in love for the 12th time on this trip) took their ID cards and my passport, looked inside the car to make sure I wasn’t tied up, drugged or dodgy (I was all three at the time), asked a couple of questions about who, what and why I was and waved us through with a well-toned arm and a taught butt…with a gun on her belt…drool!
The tension evaporated as soon as we were up to cruising speed and we chatted amiably, Scarlot and Mr Harlot pointing out such things as the Pot Shops (weed is legal in Washington state) but none of us are stoners (we just high on life) and generally giving me the vibe of the place.
The highway was in good order and ran through pretty rural country with the odd shopping mall at intervals. The transition from Canada to USA is a gentle one, only the laws and the attitudes really changed, bears know no borders and not even the border guards would mess with them.
The land was flat and there was a hint of hills or mountains behind the weather.
We were headed into Seattle to Everett Field to a place called the Institute of Flight where we had tickets to attend a beer and blues sort of event that was celebrating something to do with aviation but to be honest I was so out of it with jet-lag that we might just as well have been going to a swimming gala but it was a lovely gesture and anyway, I needed something to anchor myself to, some sense of reality where I could touch things and make jokes and eat stuff that didn’t come on a plastic tray.
I felt very comfortable in the presence of the Harlots, I just wish I had had a bit more mental energy so I could be the person they think I am. If I had felt less comfortable I might have been a bit more lively with the adrenaline but here I was, looking at Seattle and thinking “Nirvana, Grunge” and soaking up the relevant info that the pair of them kept me interested and awake with…it was fascinating and surreal…shee-it dude, I’m in Seattle…Frasier Crane, Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs…seasoned Crepe dishes, Niles, Kurt Cobain, Foo-Fighters…BOEING!!!!
Oh yes, we were going to the Institute of Flight and that is at Everett Field and that is where the Boeing factory is!!!! Holy bacon slices Batman, this is where the Holy Grail of Aviation is and…. New Zealand bought the first ever plane that Boeing sold…it all wraps up nicely, I was meant to be there.
The weather was warm and wet and bit humid as we drove through Seattle, the overcast didn’t spoil the day, I knew Seattle got a lot of rain and so things were as expected…and then OMG! The Boeing factory hove into view and it is huge, like reeeaaalllyyyyy huge!
This was just too much, the scale of the buildings is a bit of a mission to take in at first, there is not a lot around it but space and a runway so until you see people or vehicles the brain doesn’t process the vastness properly. The 787’s and 747’s lined up outside gave the first hints.
Looking left and right I was pleased to see a couple of Air New Zealand 787’s one outside the assembly plant and another lined up with a heap of others outside the paint shop.
We parked up in the Institute of Flight car park and I was struggling to stay upright, I just felt like the whole world was blood heat and I was just dissolving into the nothingness of it all…I felt a buzzing in my ears and like a small child at the end of an interminable shopping trip I followed the Harlots into the building.
Now that woke me up, it is full of planes and bits of planes and things to touch that you are not supposed to touch and I had great time touching them all.
We were early for the soiree so we headed down some stairs to touch things and stand by the massive engines that power a 777 like the one I just flew in on. There was some cool stuff to buy and I had to resist for now as shopping while jet-lagged is bad voodoo.
Up some stairs and into the area where the ‘do’ was happening and I was confronted with music and a free beer, a free packet of crisps (chips if you are a Yank) too! I selected a Pale Ale and with the band striking up at a volume that jarred my tired senses I headed outside onto the deck.
Being away from people for a few minutes was nice, it allowed me to process things and understand where I was at…standing on a damp deck in Seattle looking at aeroplanes.
To my right and parked as close to the building we were in/on as possible was an Angola Airlines 777 looking very smart in its red and orange paint…behind that was a Dreamlifter, one of the bloated 747’s that flies the globe transporting bits of 787 around, such a cool job I reckon and a pretty cool plane too.
The Harlots came out to see me as the racket inside was a bit much for them too and not a huge amount of people had turned up. They caught me watching in amazement as the Air NZ 787 (ZK-NKI) out by the paint shop fired up its engines for a test, I was hoping it was going to take off on its delivery flight but it was just going through the last of a battery of tests.
“That took some organising I can tell you”
I looked at Mr Harlot but his delivery was so dead-pan that I couldn’t fathom out if he was joking or not…. The Harlots are the kind of people that would get a real buzz from pulling off a stunt like that and I still half-believe that they could have done it.
Either way it was cool and we stood for a while checking out flight plans for Everett Field to see if it was scheduled to fly tonight and being dedicated aviation geeks we would have waited, hell, I would have slept in the car to see it take off.
But it wasn’t to be and we spent some time talking to a very pretty and lovely young lady who seemed far too nice to be into aeroplanes but this was Seattle where EVERYBODY gets off on Boeing!
Then the time came when I felt I had done enough to be able to tell the Harlots that I was fading fast and that I was ready to leave whenever they were, my equilibrium was having an unequal struggle with the forces of tiredness and things were getting fuzzy. Thankfully my hosts were ready to head back too and off we went back into bear country to sit me down and rest.
But instead of turning right out of the carpark we turned left and took a little track round the back of the Boeing factory, Mr Harlot showed a pass to a security guard, Scarlet leaned out of the window and said something to him, he looked at me, nodded and we drove down under a small rocky cliff at the back of the factory.
In the cliff was a barred cave entrance with what looked like an ATM beside it.
We got out of the SUV and walked towards the cave, as we approached a heavy glass screen slid up and blocked the entrance but we could still see inside.
Approaching the bars and a low rail we peered inside but could see nothing much until Mr Harlot fed a $50 bill into the ATM-looking machine and a light came on. Holy Cow!! Inside was the Boeing Dragon! It is a well-kept secret but every Boeing employee with a clearance above Alpha 7007 knows that Boeing keep the dragon there to heat the factory and smelt small amounts of aluminium for when custom parts are needed.
I swear the dragon was green but Scarlot Harlot assures me that it was purple…apparently, it is OK to talk about this secret because nobody will believe me but if you believe in Chemtrails and the Flat Earth then you will believe in the Boeing dragon…
I was still overawed by the size of the Boeing factory but then the USA is a big place and so it still seemed to scale, put that lot down in Hamilton NZ and it would look just huuuuge it has a bigger floor area than the whole of Helensville (which isn’t where I live so don’t come looking for me)!
Driving back to a house was a nice feeling, even though they could still have been serial killers or swingers, I felt a sense of relaxation that one tends not to get when staying with family on the other side of the world, don’t get me wrong, I love my family but with friends there are less expectations, even though such expectations may only be in one’s head.
Swooping up the drive towards a house I knew so well from google earth it was that surreal ‘strange but familiar” feeling not déjŕ vu but something much weirder.
The garage door swung up revealing their taste in cars, German for her (oh dear, most of the people who have nearly killed me on the roads drove German cars) and Italian for him (OK if it isn’t dark and /or raining) but to Mr Harlots credit his Ferrari isn’t red it is silver and THAT boys and girls is motherlovin’ cool!!! It looks gorgeous!!
Up some steps and into the house, which although it isn’t huge by American standards is actually pretty massive and tastefully furnished too, it felt comfortable, somewhere I could fall apart gracefully.
But you know I don’t judge people by their material possessions, I either like or do not like, no what was good about it was that I knew that in a house this size I would be in a guest bedroom far from the master bedroom and I am really not comfortable being in a position where I might have to walk past my hosts bedroom in the night in need of poos and wees….big fear that one is, I might be naked, or fart or they might be arguing or worse still having sex.
The fish tank was very impressive and it was a hoot to meet a cat I have known from pictures for most of her life.
I was shown to my room and adjoining toilet; I was shown which window to look out of if I heard bears and I was lent a phone charger as mine was in the hold of a 777 battling its way through minging weather to an unplanned stop in Fiji.
I had a drink of Vegemite to soothe my nerves and straighten out the kinks caused by not sleeping on the plane, I was dead on my feet at LHR and should have slept on the plane but Greenland and Lakes n’ Stuff kept me up so by the time we got back to Harlot HQ I had been on the go for around 21 hours and that is not a state I thrive in.
If it wasn’t for the fact that there were new and cool things to do I think I might have still been asleep in a hire car in YVR car rental pick up yard if I was left to my own devices…I done good, so far I had seen Bald Eagles, nearly got us searched at the border and had avoided buying legal weed, touched things I shouldn’t have, watched a new Air NZ 787 start up, learnt that Angola has an airline, seen the Boeing dragon and met a cat on the internet.
Back at Chez Harlot I had an All-Bran Muffin because that is how we met in the first instance, Scarlet Harlot liked my Trip Report from Portugal (Mr Harlot is Portuguese) in it was a reference to All Bran…
“One of the hotel guests (A lady who was most definitely not a medium) came down to breakfast every day and instead of tucking in to all the culinary delights of Portugal sat down and staunchly placed a giant-sized packet of “All Bran” cereal (This is a high-fibre and gentle remedy for people who don’t do poos very much and would really like too) between her and the rest of the world, it stood there, defiant and poised, a beacon of Britishness in a sea of European decadence. (Ha! I shouldn’t bother with that stuff Cybil, if you need to loosen the bowels just eat some of this foreign muck, that’ll shift anything, its stopping it will be the problem then my dear!).”
All I needed now was a good poo and an encounter with a nocturnal bear on the lawn (in my pyjamas) and I would be able to just sit and chill for the next two days having had the best time ever…but what happened the next day surpassed all that…
I slept like a dead thing for a while but had to wake up and do my toilet regime that was still stubbornly on NZ time and in the process broke the toilet cistern and fixed it again but not properly.
I was in fear of waking the Harlots up in case they thought I needed help but what help can you give a half-naked white guy suffering from jet-lag with his hand in the cistern??? Luckily nobody had to find out that night and I managed a reasonable sleep but nothing like sufficient because my mind was racing, throttle to the stop just thinking about stuff but I did drift in and out of slumber enough to feel my usual “don’t do mornings” self at breakfast time.
Today was the big day, we were going to head down to The Museum of Flight for an absolute orgy of aviation history! Anywhere with a Super Constellation outside must be a great place to go!! After that it was the Boeing factory tour.
So, off we headed down the highway to two unforgettable experiences…The Museum of Flight and The Boeing Factory Tour….I feared I might die from happiness!
The weather looked a little sketchy but for Seattle I guess it was fine as it wasn’t actually raining and we arrived under overcast skies at The Museum. It was around this time that I discovered Mr Harlot knows an awful lot about trains, he is like an onion, he reveals himself in layers, all of them fascinating… I saw him repair a handbag with Loctite Thread Lock later in the day which was totally surreal, I would never have guessed it could be done.
Scarlet is less mysterious, what you see is what you get, a genuine and lovely person who never seems to tire and is very adept at keeping jet-lagged Kiwis awake with things to do and see.
The Museum, well, I think at this point my brain really did explode, the restrictions of forum software mean I cannot begin to do it justice because I can’t upload the 100 pics I took but if you want to see a plane, from any period in history it will be here.
I touched a B17!!! I went inside Concorde, I nearly made love to a Super Constellation and I have a pic of every fighter from both world wars and Korea!
Scarlet Harlot was all teary-eyed over the 787 because it was the first to fly and they were at Everett Field when it flew for the very first time. I was numb with joy at going inside the first 747 and utterly shocked by what a claustrophobic and tiny thing Concorde was.
There is a huge room with planes hanging from the ceiling, too much to take in during a single visit, you could go there once a week for a year and still not take it all in….go there, do it before you die.
So, that ended, we had burgers for lunch and high-tailed it to Everett Field for the Boeing Factory tour, no photography allowed so no pics to show you but OMG it was worth the effort!
Our tour guide had hairy chops, like an old pioneer and a very lyrical way of explaining things, like he was sitting by the fireside in a log cabin with an audience of wide-eyed 5 year olds…he was very entertaining and did the job well, facts and figures but delivered in a non-confronting way with humour and energy.
They show you a 5-minute propaganda video for Boeing that is actually pretty good and then load you on buses for the drive to the factory and you get out of the bus and look up at the hanger doors and nearly fall over, it is huuuuuuge!! So huge that it used to create its own weather inside and they had to install an HRV ventilation system to stop it raining inside the building every time someone dropped a spanner.
We marched along a massive service corridor and went up in a lift to the viewing gantry and you think, “yeah, big building” and then you reset your parameters, fit it all into context and go “Holy Poop! There are six 777’s in here and they look small!”
Each hanger builds either 787’s, 777’s or 767’s and 747’s, the venerable 737 is built a few miles down the road.
I was geeking out at some of the jigs and workstations they use to build these planes….wow! Just wow! I was lost for words and still am because it really is a peak experience for an aviation geek, I thought the maintenance hangars at AKL were big but I think the toilets at Boeing are bigger!
I learnt so much about how planes are made and a heap about the history of Boeing and really got in touch with my inner aviation geek.
As we boarded the bus we drove past the paint hangers, which are a blast on their own and back to the gift shop where I bought some stuff for the kids and headed back to the house in the woods.
It was here that I met a friend of the Harlots, I shall call her ‘Trainee Crazy Cat Lady’ or TCCL for short and she gets that title because she is a remote worker (much like me) and is using that freedom to tour the USA and Canada in her car with her cat along for the ride, staying at Air B n B’s and other alternative lodgings.
I liked TCCL a lot, she has that upbeat humour, independence and lust for life that I find very appealing. I should probably have married her there and then but by this time in the trip there was a bit of a waiting list so I made do with beating her (and everyone else) at “Cards Against Humanity”. It was playing this that sealed the deal because she is as twisted in the melon as I am and she very nearly beat me…respect TCCL, I hope that wherever you are you are having an awesome time.
This was my last night with the Harlots, and although I love them dearly they let me down badly because there were no bears in their garden that night either, maybe they peaked at having the Air NZ 787 fired up just for me but really, they could have made just that little bit more effort….Mr Harlot gave me some old waffle about it not being Bear season but I’m not buying it, they just didn’t care enough to try…I shall return…in bear season in the hopes that they might redeem themselves.
So, Sunday morning 24th July 2016, we headed up the highway back to Vancouver as I was flying out that evening and I needed to see Vancouver and buy some Haida (First Nations) Art for Mrs J.
TCCL was following behind us, maybe two hours behind and she had the strangest experience which I will relate shortly.
The weather was stunning on the drive back to YVR and I saw Mount Rainier and wished I had time to climb it (one day maybe) and we were in good spirits although I was still badly jet-lagged and generally over-stimulated.
Crossing the border was the usual melee and we each decide who we hated in the cars around us, I did not point at anything or touch anything or mention anything that in a court of law might be used against me…nobody asked me to get on the ground.
A lady in uniform asked me where I was going and why and did anyone in the car have a gun to my back or had they asked me to engage in moral turpitude or force me to commit any act against my will. I screamed for help but Mr Harlot hit the gas and we were in Canada again.
Canada does feel different from the USA, lighter and more vibrant but that might just be all in my head…however, a nation that has access to TimBits will always be a happy nation.
So we are driving up the road and comms are occurring between the Harlot and TCCL…it transpires that during her time in Washington state she had had a text conversation with persons unknown about the purchase of legal weed. She disposed of what she didn’t smoke before leaving Seattle and as she came through Canadian Border Control she was hit with Mr Harlot’s worst nightmare…stop and search!
They took her phone, looked in it and showed it to her “you have texts relating to the purchase of Marijuana on your phone, you know it is illegal here in Canada?”
The outcome wasn’t too 1984 and she was allowed into Canada after they had strip-searched her cat but the lesson here boys and girls is THEY REALLY ARE WATCHING YOU!!!
We headed into a part of town that had everything we needed, it was down by the water and full of restaurants and arty shops. Granville Island it is called and because there was a waiting list at Edible Canada of 25 minutes we headed out and bought the first batch of Haida Art before eating and heading up the street to the village markets to check out the views and buy more art. I also bought T Shirts, I love Haida Art, I loved Granville Island and I especially loved the food at Edible Canada.
After this it was time to go and meet TCCL and go check out more of what Vancouver has to offer. The weather was stunning, hottest day of the year so far and everywhere that was outdoors was packed! Parking was impossible but there is so much to see that we drove around and looked at as much as possible without it being too rushed. TCCL and I leapt out of the car at times to take pics and buy stuff…the beautiful people were everywhere, I just looked and felt that Vancouver is somewhere people can be very happy indeed, I loved the place!
And then, as with all good things just as I was feeling normal again it came to an end, I had to go retrieve my Bovril, avoid having my cabin baggage weighed and take an Air NZ 777 back to AKL.
It was with a heavy heart that I bade farewell to TCCL and the Harlots, I really should have stayed another few days but one has to keep one’s nose to the grindstone and pay for all this travel.
My Bovril was returned to me as promised and despite probably being on a camera somewhere, touching something I shouldn’t, I was allowed through the formalities and into the Koru Lounge where I drank a lot of Ginger Ale and ate blue cheese and crackers in the reflective solitude that is my long-haul persona.
It had been a hoot seeing all the people I had seen and doing all the things I had done. It was very much up to expectations and meeting the Harlots was an unforgettable experience but I was done, completely spent and the only thing keeping me going was the knowledge that when I got home I would land at 5 am and be able to go home and stay in bed for 24 hrs…right now that was my dearest wish, no disrespect to anybody but I really needed that.
Slumped in the lounge I started to decompress, gazing out at the 777 waiting on the tarmac to take me home. I moved seats because the guy sitting opposite me looked too smug and moved again because the woman sitting next to me reminded me of someone I don’t like….then it was time to go the gate.
I admit that I like to board first if possible and that is the same for a lot of people so I shouldn’t complain but I was standing at the gate, by the paper spewing out of the computer I knew boarding would commence in seconds and some blonde harridan of a certain age, with entitlement issues pushed in front of me and stood so as not to allow me to regain my position. “Oh well, if it is that important to you” I thought, I wasn’t even first in line, there were people with babies and wheelchairs in pole position so I let it slide.
Karma is a funny thing though, the blonde harridan spent so much time making her importance known to the gate staff that the gate staff were twitching and then her passport and boarding pass caused issues and it all looked like becoming a mini-series so a kindly Asian FA opened the second gate entry and waved me through with a knowing look….haha! Eat it blondie!!!
I was on a free Koru upgrade and in Premium Economy, “Mr Jafa, look! Your seat is right by the door!” said the FA and there it was left hand end of the first row behind the wall in the centre of the plane…nice! Couldn’t have been better!
What happened next was jaw-dropping as the click-bait would say…a couple of blonde German backpackers, one male and one female, probably an item, came on, took the right-hand side pair of the row of four I was sat in and commenced scrubbing every surface of the seat, armrest, tray, carpet, the works, with alcohol wipes. Teutonically industrial they were, in their quest to rid their personal space of germs….I imagined that sex for these too would be a protracted and paranoid affair involving hazmat suits and lots of bleach.
There was nobody in the seat to my left so I chucked all my crap in there, put my backpack in the overhead and took my shoes off. The legroom was astounding, there was a menu and proper steel cutlery and sparkling wine to drink while we waited for the plane to board and things to happen.
I had deliberately saved this upgrade for the final leg as YVR-AKL is 14 hours and I wanted to make the best of it.
After a few weeks the Germans had decided the seats were clean enough to sit in, we were given goodie bags with comfortable things in them and the FAs strapped themselves in.
One was just to my left and facing my direction, “Does it ever get old?” I asked “Hell yeah” he replied and sat looking at the floor in a wistful way, as if staring into a yuletide log fire, reminiscing about butter drips from crumpets and the reassuring purr of kittens.
The time came to depart and we trundled out onto the runway, heavy with food, fuel, bags people, it seemed to take a while to taxi into position and then, with a triumphant roar and a sense of relief we hurtled through the twilight of Canada and lurched into the air.
There was a horrible grinding noise below my feet, as if important maintenance involving power tools was happening but the FA didn’t cry or cross himself so I assumed it was OK.
Then I became aware of the weight of the aircraft, it was revving hard, oodles of thrust churning out behind us but it was barely staggering into the air, it felt sluggish and overweight (just like me most evenings) and I looked across to the port window to see how slowly we were inching our way skywards.
“Drone, rattle, grind” it seemed to take forever to heave ourselves out of the clutches of the earthly plane and nothing happened, FA’s sat and stared, the Germans searched their surroundings for imaginary lice and Ebola mites, the 777 kept grinding slowly upwards, slowly, inexorably gaining speed and altitude against the forces of gravity.
It didn’t happen all at once but it did become noticeably quieter, the grinding under the floor stopped, the engines sounded smoother and less troubled and lights came on, FA’s scurried about preparing to feed us and I sorted my entertainment choices for the next 14 hours.
I had a film to finish watching, a lot of sleep to catch up on and some serious unwinding to do.
Food came and was excellent, booze flowed, the Germans inspected their food as if they expected it to be designed to kill them, slowly and the girl shot me a death-stare for putting my crap in the seat next to me…I exhaled in her general direction and displayed a stiff upper lip.
The flight had its moments, the weather around Hawaii was still pants and we stayed out east for ages, barging south through turbulence and staying low until we had burned enough fuel to get high and go above it.
I imagined our 777 ploughing through grey skies, buffeted by the crap weather that seemed to have decided to envelope the entire Pacific region and I suddenly had an acute feeling of how tiny we were, from inside it seemed like a community in a big-as plane but in the grand scheme of things we were barely a dot….it felt very humbling.
Films, comedy shows, plenty of sleep and more than enough turbulence, that sums up this flight. I visited all the toilets, I watched the germ-free Germans express disgust at everything around them and I chatted with the FA who was a good Kiwi sort and profoundly homesick and at some point we gained altitude and left most of the turbulence behind, I slept again until breakfast.
I love the last 2 hours of a long-haul flight, the way the mood changes, people come back to life and start to get their .... together and become human again, rather than human cargo.
But life is never that simple, the skies over Auckland were lumpy, wet and dark, there were delays in landing so we sat in a holding pattern out to the East and just as we started our approach we had to pull out of it because the wind direction changed and we had to get back into the queue and wait for 8 other flights to land before we could go in for another go but from the West this time…we spiralled around in wet skies for ages but eventually it was our turn and the airshow counted down the vertical metres until we made a lumpy landing on a rain-soaked runway about 45 mins late.
Never mind, I was home, already racked with nostalgia for this past 13 days, relieved to be back in AKL and anticipating a good long sleep in a bed that smelled of me and wasn’t up in the sky.
I grabbed my bags which we very wet and made my way to customs where I was very honest about my wooden First Nations artefacts, my probably illegal Bovril and two highly suspect Battenberg Cakes….”What is a Battenberg Cake?” asked the Indian customs guy, I told him and winced ready to be fined and beaten with sticks for attempting to bring contraband into the country, “Enjoy them then, sounds nice” and he stamped me through as no threat to the flora and fauna of Aotearoa.
Phew! I emerged blinking into the soggy pre-dawn found my Ute in the carpark and vowed not to fly anywhere for a few weeks.
48 hours later I was back, boarding an AKL-WLG flight but that is another story…….
I am a Koru member and I have an extra bag allowance as a result, 2 x23kg. When the kiosk demanded 200 bucks to fly my nearly empty suit case (was going to fill it with First Nations Art in Vancouver) to YVR I thought there must be an error, so I went to check in with a skinny Indian girl who was suffering a bad attack of terminal lassitude (couldn’t give a damn in plain English). She just about summoned the energy to tell me I had to pay for the other bag, this did not please me and a heated discussion ensued.
Miss Lassitude decided that I should go and shout at the boss instead of her, which was unreasonable of her…at this point in the early morning even her breathing in and out seemed unreasonable and I was having a job keeping it together.
As a precaution I grabbed The Patient One (TPO) from his check in queue and told him to hang fire for a minute or two as I had to go and argue with someone.
That someone was an utter jerk too but he did explain that what Air NZ didn’t tell me was that my bag privileges did not extend to the code share leg and that really hacked me off!!! It should be made clear and it just isn’t good enough…not at 7am, not at 11am, it just isn’t!!!!
I told Mr Jerk that he was an idiot and asked to see his boss, he told me he was the boss and I told him he was not my favourite person and I was going to rearrange things.
He told me I couldn’t re-pack in the check in area and told him it would be extremely unwise to try to stop me.
I raced back to Miss Lassitude who was barely giving a damn enough to actually stay upright on her stool. My sister and her man saw me and, looking very concerned, asked what was wrong…I yelled something about Jerks and stormed off.
TPO arrived and I explained the plan, I was going to repack and give him my spare bag as his bag would fit the cabin baggage requirements and he could put my spare in as his checked bag but I needed to swap stuff between my main bag and the spare bag as I had just randomly chucked stuff in, assuming that both bags would come to Canada with me.
I was halfway through this hurried task when a knuckle-dragging mouth-breather in uniform approached me and (with one hand on what looked like a can of mace or a tazer) told me I couldn’t repack at the check-in counter.
He got told to back right off and had the sense to retreat…
Hand bag to TPO, take a biiiig breath, think of puppies and relaaaaaax…
Nobody wanted to look at me. Miss Lassitude, on the verge of a coma, somehow found the wherewithal to give me my boarding pass. I took it and found TPO, we met with Sis and her man for a quick debrief and a hug.
I was ready to go to Canada now.
The pair of us strolled into the x-ray and ritual humiliation area. It was light and airy with a feeling of busy about it, all around us people in uniforms decided who looked dodgy enough for the back-scatter machine and who looked dangerous enough to be let through unmolested.
Fat brown men with Saddam Hussein moustaches ran the show here and they were supervised by bitter, man-hating white lesbians who got a thrill out of not smiling and having no makeup. They all had their hair scraped back in a severe bun and I bet they all had Pitbull’s and made their girlfriends cry when they got home.
All I wanted to do was get to the giant shopping mall that sucked away your money while you waited for the call to the gate, I wanted to be away from officialdom and in the warm embrace of lovely Flight Attendants who only wanted to feed me and make me comfortable.
But before I could do that I had to take off my shoes and my belt and my watch and my copper bracelet and empty my pockets and strike an unnatural pose in the back-scatter radar booth (I hoped the Lesbians could see my gentleman's and that it revolted them) and then I had to put it all back on again and finally…..
All the angst drained out of me, I looked for somewhere to sit or better yet crap. I began to regain my composure mainly through not having the energy to be angry any more.
TPO joined me, we went and sat down, it said the Air Canada lounge was by invite only and I just couldn’t be bothered to argue.
We sat and just burbled to each other, we had both had a good time in the UK and achieved all our objectives bar casual sex with a stranger but that was probably for the best…well for TPO certainly.
Holy membranes I was tired, utterly drained and all I could hear was a buzzing in my ears apart from when I went to the toilet but that took everything I had…having fun is hard work but as the time to go to the gate arrived I snapped back into long-haul mode. I led TPO off on a purposeful walk to the gate, which was a very long way away.
So glad to be moving and very excited about meeting the Harlots!! Maybe I would see a bear (not that sort C Andrew Ewen…) or a Eagle or logs floating down a river!!
Before we headed underground we could see the Air Canada 777 at the gate, the other side of the runway. It was ice blue, a bit grubby but it was there, waiting for us, things were good, we were going to motherloving Canada!!
At the gate a lovely Asian Lady cracked jokes and made sure we all got into the correct queue, without any significant delays and with a cheeky lunge into an eddy in the line we were at the door, on the threshold of discovering what an Air Canada 777 looks like inside.
They are a bit bland to be honest, yes I am biased as I travel Air NZ as much as possible but there is a warm and inviting quality to Air NZ 777’s, yes it is still a sea of man-made materials but the way they are sculpted (Air NZ manufacture their own monoliths with Boeing’s blessing and so their interiors are unique) and the colours are very conducive to chilling the heck out over a Pinot Noir.
I understand that Canada is mainly lakes ‘n stuff and what isn’t lakes ‘n stuff is either Ice or a Bear and Canadians probably love their national 777 interiors but I found it uninviting although the blindingly white toilets did have a massive mirror which would make mile-high sex a better event on AC than Air NZ…I didn’t try it on this flight but I wouldn’t rule it out in future.
As we waited to complete all that stuff that happens before you can take off I groped my way through the IFE and was dismayed to find that all the entertainment, be it music, TV or films was Canadian and only about 5 possible selections in each category…now this rampant Xenophobia is to be expected on an Aussie carrier as it fits the crass jingoism and embedded marketing and shameless promotion that one expects from the less civilised side of the Tasman but for a PC and gentle race such as the Canadians?
I found it jarred my perception of the country and made me wonder about my impending hosts…would I be forced to listen to Canadian Bear hunter music? Eat only Canadian All-Bran? (I was as it turned out) Watch Canadian Sit-coms and pronounce “out” in that peculiar way that prevents Canadians from being spies and Ninjas….well you’ll have to keep reading to find out…
We eventually trundled out across the tarmac into full view of bearded men with brown shoes and rocket launchers, they referred to their ladybird book of infidel and decided that shooting down a Canadian plane would only score them 15 virgins and quick peek up the skirt of a Nun so they downed tools and carried on plotting to overthrow the civilised world until something more profane came into view.
With a heave on the Fly by Wire we launched skyward and I watched London recede below us…I was very tired and very relived to be heading for somewhere I had never been and about to meet a couple I have known for 11 years but never met (although a colleague of mine has) and yet still counted them among my best friends…not sure what they think of me but they seem to like me. All that may change in the next 10 hours I thought.
Trouble is, the me you read about is the me inside my head mostly, in real life a lot of the twisted view on life is under the surface, I may seem distracted, bored or even dead but rest assured a lot is going down in the mental processing department.
My biggest fear was that I would prove an anti-climax, a disappointment and in my state of perpetual jet-lag on this trip that was quite likely…
I watched the map of England (OK and Wales and Scotland…don’t go all Europe on me) and monitored our progress out over the Atlantic towards the coast of Greenland. I had a snooze, a poo and something to eat that was made in Canada and played the Canadian national anthem when you opened the lid…I thought of Mounties who always get their man, which reminded me of the YMCA for reasons best left undisclosed and got used to the ambience of the aircraft…it started to make sense, an ANZ interior reminds you of NZ and clearly Canada was going to be clean and a bit Spartan with a lot of light blue stuff.
I woke from a snooze and casually watched the stunning posterior of an AC Flight Attendant (female) do the “C-D hips” as she waltzed up the aisle between rows C and D if you need it explaining to you, handing out little pots of ice cream…with that arse and that ice cream I resolved to get the Captain to marry us at once.
But then I looked out of the window and gasped! We were approaching the coast of Greenland and there was nothing green about it…the sea was still and blue and the land was white, with black rocks sticking out and azure pools of meltwater randomly pooling or whatever it does…Holy fridge magnets Batman!!! It was stunning!!!
I leapt out (oat?) of my seat and blundered to the back door to gaze upon the beauty below.
A bay sat in the surreal sunlight, corralling an iceberg in a sea of perfect blue…I stared transfixed…I was lost in the wonder of it all and my mind drifted down 39,000 feet to the unfolding scene below me…I was every explorer that ever got frostbite, I was in overload because all my favourite places on the planet are untouched by man (or woman, yes Milly Tant, or woman) and this was the most pristine of all that I had seen so far.
Mrs Jafa, being a Cockney Townie and an utter Philistine would have muttered, “Yeah, snow, whatever” but I was babbling inside and occasionally to the people who had also cottoned on to the beauty of it all…. I didn’t need IFE, I had ICE!!!!
My camera clicked furiously I was torn between recording the scene digitally and soaking it up viscerally and emotionally, I didn’t want to miss a thing, wanted to own it, love it and keep that feeling inside me forever.
So far I have managed it.
I watched the whole of Greenland pass below and nearly wet myself with joy, I had to go and sit down while we flew over the sea and try to get some much needed sleep but it didn’t happen, I was high on reflected light and ice cream, I knew I was going to be a mess by the time I got to Canada but the ADHD was in full swing.
Eventually I got control of my faculties and chilled for a while but the urge to see what the centre toilets looked like was too strong and I went for a jaunt.
The view out of the centre doors got my attention….a vast area of lakes ‘n stuff!!! Innumerable lakes, acres of ‘n stuff….masses and masses of wilderness…this was all green and blue, stunning in its nothingness and breath-taking in its vastness…I got high on nature all over again!
Drooling out the window got me suspicious looks from returning Canadians who are used to a more restrained approach to lakes ‘n stuff (and bears ‘n stuff…and bear stuff) and I could imagine them tut-tutting at my unrestrained joy and general overawed-ness.
So yeah, it all got a bit much and I had to go and sit down and try to rest because I should have been asleep but it was all too much and the quality of the light was like speed and I just wanted to run up and down like a small boy in a supermarket but that would get me on a list at Mountie HQ so I tried to sleep and ended up just watching the map.
Canada!!!!! OMG we were on the descent and heading down through the clouds to Vancouver and I was pressed against the window like an inquisitive Goldfish who had eaten too many Skittles and then…the clouds parted and I saw exactly what I had prayed for…a barge towing logs down the river!!!!!!
I saw trees that were still in the ground and more logs and then the airport and no bears but I was here, well a thousand feet above “here” and although it was a bit overcast it looked nice enough and my excitement rose to fever pitch…I was about to meet the Harlots!!!
I nearly took a chill pill but decided that was probably going to stop my heart what with the jet-lag and all so I just composed myself because I still had to get TPO into the transit lounge and off to Auckland before seeing if I would be allowed into the country.
We landed and life went into slow motion again in that way it always does after a long-haul flight as people tried to work out how to walk again, found their bags in the overhead and panicked because customs declaration cards always make you feel like a criminal.
Staggering into the terminal we followed the signs and progressed along an elevated corridor that took us past what looked like a rockery on the floor below and exciting views of ice blue planes with maple leaves on their tails…some looked a bit dirty…must be the French influence.
TPO and I came to a fork in the road and our destinies, I was about to head down some stairs, past some cool First Nations Art and into the massive arrivals hall to meet my fate and TPO had to head right and into the Transit Area (he got excited because he thought it would be full of Ford Transit vans and he likes those) and make his peace with his maker before embarking on what turned out to be 14 hours of abject misery.
Let’s tell that story briefly…TPO isn’t a drama queen like me so it may not quite tell like the epic it was but the guts of it is that a storm cell over Hawaii was causing a few disturbances in the force and not only was it rock n roll to the point that the overhead bins opened and disgorged a torrent of whatever it is people carry in their hand luggage (dried fish if you are on a AKL-HKG flight) onto people’s heads.
The weather was so bad that the flight had to land in Fiji to refuel because it had been battering into a head wind…that and I think the weather in NZ was so bad that the alternate to AKL was SYD at the time.
This was not a problem as TPO had never been to Fiji and found it all a bit of a lark.
We shook hands and I left him to his fate and for the next few days he was to me as Schrodinger’s Cat, possibly dead until I opened the box and found him alive.
I took my time descending into the boarding area, partly because there was a lot to take in and partly because a very pretty lady with a clingy dress was in front of me and after 9.5 hours of ice and lakes ‘n stuff (and Canadian Country and Western) it was a change of scenery for me and as I felt like a grubby, unwashed, dirty old man I thought I would act like one.
The queue snaked through the tensa-barriers but the novelty of standing on real ground meant time passed in a daze and I eventually found myself at the desk of an astoundingly pretty young woman who might have been Athabascan or I might have just made that up but the First Nations blood that ran through her veins made her very exotic and sturdy but curvy (like the hot one in Flying Wild Alaska) and I fell in love for the tenth time on this trip and the fact that she was in uniform just made it even more erotically charged.
Despite being an obvious nutter she made small talk with me and asked me what I was doing in Canada…I refrained from telling the truth because doing a multi-stop long-haul to visit people you have never met will get you locked up and your bumps felt in the 21st Century…probably at any time since the first human ever smuggled a lick of ganga across a border in fact.
So I lied and said I was a tourist and had come to see some bears, she gave me a look and I said…no, the big hairy sort…she gave me another look…they have fur and big claws and eat your picnic…she relaxed and decided I was just another idiot honky tourist and waved me through.
But then I was a total retard and told the truth to the customs dude via the little cardboard customs declaration!!!
“Oh noes, I has a Bovril…..”
Well ľ of a kilo of the stuff to be exact, all brown and ready to be spread on toast, from a Tesco’s in Naaaaaridge to be precise.
Well you know what, Bovril ist verboten in the land of lakes ‘n stuff and the customs guy held one of the jars at arm’s length, like he had just found a dirty book in a school desk.
He made those “we gonna burn this mofo and not even give you the box back” noises.
Oh dear, The Boy would be so disappointed, he had specifically asked for them and I had even sent him a pic of them from Tesco’s car park as lightning crashed about the English summer skies.
“I have an idea” I told the guy above the crackle from his radio (somebody, somewhere had a piece of non-native sawdust in his pocket and the hit squad were onto him) “This stuff is totally legal in NZ (lies, damn lies!) how about I leave it here and pick it up on Tuesday?”
“Wait now” he said and lumbered off with my contraband to see if he could get a head-kick in on the sawdust guy.
I stood about and felt lonely, the carpet was stained with the tears of a thousand unintentional smugglers who had been relieved of everything from a live Crocodile to a necklace from Chernobyl made of radioactive broad beans.
I picked my nose and wondered if The Harlots were already up at the observation deck, wondering if I was just delayed or a work of fiction?
My rugged antagonist returned, carrying the Bovril jars as if they had just yelled “Durka, Durka Jihad!!!’ and unfurled a black flag.
He smiled “Fill in this 327-page form in triplicate and we will store the jars here for you if you can guarantee they are unopened.”
I assured him that they were and the evil beef-beasties would not be hitching a ride on his socks prior to wriggling inside the ear of his darling wife (or husband, this is Canada after all) and turn them into a bovine zombie with Friesian eyes by morning.
Lol! He was in more danger than he would ever know….
So after being given instructions as to where my Bovril could be retrieved in a few days’ time I headed off to the obs deck, pausing only to buy Mrs Jafa some Canadian salted chocolate and look for a phone charger because mine was on the point of being dumped unceremoniously into the hold of a 777 ….well they might actually have all been having a potlach over the thrill of loading Jafa39’s Samsung charger onto the Air NZ 777.
I dunno, I could imagine the conversation “Jafa39 has insulted my culture more than yours!” “Oh no he hasn’t, he once said the French were all descended from the accidental mating of a Chimpanzee prostitute from Riems and a Wild Boar”…”Close my friend but Mr Jafagee once described all Indian men as a walking TB epidemic….that is very insulting isn’t it!” “You should hear what he had to say about Chinese tourists!” said Lu Fung Yip with a knowing flourish “he said we had the collective IQ of a retarded barn rat! It makes me feel so velly special!”)
Where was I?
“Ooh yes! I know, I know! Pick me!”
I was having a poo in my first experience of Canadian sanitary plumbing and it was marvellous and I forgot to tell you that I got my bag from the carousel before I went to the customs guy but none of that matters because I went up an escalator and wandered through the obs deck.
I had received a couple of Facebook messages from Scarlet Harlot telling me they were not far away...in universal terms the Andromeda Galaxy isn’t far away so in my jet-lagged and excited state it wasn’t much help.
I sat down, at a small table by a burger joint, A&W I think it was and as they are my real-world initials I was happy to be there, all keyed up for the momentous meeting.
I watched and waited and then as the actual moment of their arrival eerrmm arrived, it was almost an anti-climax…I knew them so well from exchanging messages on Aviation websites and Farcebook, I was so tuned into who they were that it felt like meeting a friend who just popped out to buy a pack of smokes.
My head didn’t explode, nobody cried, rockets weren’t launched, Scarlet just handed me a Boeing hat and we went to get a burger like it was the most natural thing in the world for people who had never met but had known each other for 11 years.
Of course they might have been wetting themselves with joy but they didn’t say anything, we just got on with our lives like old friends and that was what was truly staggering about the experience…it felt so normal, we didn’t need to make a big deal of it and I probably didn’t need the root beer and burger but as we sat at the table, me trying very hard to behave (God knows why, they read this drivel that I write) but I do remember a feeling of relief, I had crossed the Rubicon, we had touched each other’s flesh and there is no way back from this point.
Mind you, by the time we had reached the USA Canada border Mr Harlot was in panic mode lest I get us all searched lol!
That comes later, we had to do driving first, provided Mr Harlot could find the car and with heroic remembering he found the big SUV and we set off for Seattle, or at least a secret part of Seattle where they live and which I cannot divulge….Snohomish to be exact….which is out in the wop-wops where bears come into your garden and poo on your lawn.
Starting out down the highway to the Canada/US border Scarlot Harlot pointed out things of interest to direct my gaze as I took in the whole scene with an inward “ Canada! Yay, I’m in Canada!!!” she showed me Bald Eagles that made nests on big power pylons and other natural wonders (no bears though) and we laughed and joked our way to the border, pausing only to stop in White Rock to buy Tim Bits and use the bathroom.
Tim Bits are tiny Tim Horton’s donut things and they come in many splendid flavours…I was gagging to eat them and we did just that, the ones with a sort of icing on the outside were my favourites and I resolved to eat as many as possible on this journey.
The Harlots are frighteningly organised, they were consulting an app that told them how long the queues were on the various border crossing points and although they have special cards that let them in pronto, me being a Gringo, would delay their passage (All-Bran can fix that) so we would be vulnerable to the vagaries of the border types with their guns and “Get on the ground” mindsets.
There is a stone edifice that marks the border between sanity and the USA, so Scarlet and I got out and played around on it, a fellow traveller waiting in the queue took a pic of us on my phone, which, knowing what I found out a few minutes later, wasn’t a smart move, it could have got us searched.
I had been cracking lame jokes about having a kilo of Cocaine hidden up my butt for most of the journey but as we sat, half an SUV in Canada and the other half officially in the USA but still not through the border guards, I was referring to it again and Mr Harlot got a bit stern with me.
“Don’t say that! They have listening devices!”
“Ooops! Really?”
“Yes really, and don’t point at anything or touch anything or we will get pulled over and searched”
Now this is a real problem because I talk with my hands (French blood) and so I had to sit on them and try not to actually say anything because Mr Harlot did not want to have the SUV dismantled because a maverick gringo pointed at something…and I for one do not blame him one little bit, what with this being the 21st century and all and having seen what happens at inspection points (remember LAX and the drunk dude?).
We took a bet on which queue would move fastest and Mr Harlot, being the perfect host decided to take my pick and that was the wrong one so we lost 3 car lengths and I could feel his pain (watch Canadians playing ice hockey if you want to know how competitive they are lol!).
A lady in uniform (oh my, I was in love for the 12th time on this trip) took their ID cards and my passport, looked inside the car to make sure I wasn’t tied up, drugged or dodgy (I was all three at the time), asked a couple of questions about who, what and why I was and waved us through with a well-toned arm and a taught butt…with a gun on her belt…drool!
The tension evaporated as soon as we were up to cruising speed and we chatted amiably, Scarlot and Mr Harlot pointing out such things as the Pot Shops (weed is legal in Washington state) but none of us are stoners (we just high on life) and generally giving me the vibe of the place.
The highway was in good order and ran through pretty rural country with the odd shopping mall at intervals. The transition from Canada to USA is a gentle one, only the laws and the attitudes really changed, bears know no borders and not even the border guards would mess with them.
The land was flat and there was a hint of hills or mountains behind the weather.
We were headed into Seattle to Everett Field to a place called the Institute of Flight where we had tickets to attend a beer and blues sort of event that was celebrating something to do with aviation but to be honest I was so out of it with jet-lag that we might just as well have been going to a swimming gala but it was a lovely gesture and anyway, I needed something to anchor myself to, some sense of reality where I could touch things and make jokes and eat stuff that didn’t come on a plastic tray.
I felt very comfortable in the presence of the Harlots, I just wish I had had a bit more mental energy so I could be the person they think I am. If I had felt less comfortable I might have been a bit more lively with the adrenaline but here I was, looking at Seattle and thinking “Nirvana, Grunge” and soaking up the relevant info that the pair of them kept me interested and awake with…it was fascinating and surreal…shee-it dude, I’m in Seattle…Frasier Crane, Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs…seasoned Crepe dishes, Niles, Kurt Cobain, Foo-Fighters…BOEING!!!!
Oh yes, we were going to the Institute of Flight and that is at Everett Field and that is where the Boeing factory is!!!! Holy bacon slices Batman, this is where the Holy Grail of Aviation is and…. New Zealand bought the first ever plane that Boeing sold…it all wraps up nicely, I was meant to be there.
The weather was warm and wet and bit humid as we drove through Seattle, the overcast didn’t spoil the day, I knew Seattle got a lot of rain and so things were as expected…and then OMG! The Boeing factory hove into view and it is huge, like reeeaaalllyyyyy huge!
This was just too much, the scale of the buildings is a bit of a mission to take in at first, there is not a lot around it but space and a runway so until you see people or vehicles the brain doesn’t process the vastness properly. The 787’s and 747’s lined up outside gave the first hints.
Looking left and right I was pleased to see a couple of Air New Zealand 787’s one outside the assembly plant and another lined up with a heap of others outside the paint shop.
We parked up in the Institute of Flight car park and I was struggling to stay upright, I just felt like the whole world was blood heat and I was just dissolving into the nothingness of it all…I felt a buzzing in my ears and like a small child at the end of an interminable shopping trip I followed the Harlots into the building.
Now that woke me up, it is full of planes and bits of planes and things to touch that you are not supposed to touch and I had great time touching them all.
We were early for the soiree so we headed down some stairs to touch things and stand by the massive engines that power a 777 like the one I just flew in on. There was some cool stuff to buy and I had to resist for now as shopping while jet-lagged is bad voodoo.
Up some stairs and into the area where the ‘do’ was happening and I was confronted with music and a free beer, a free packet of crisps (chips if you are a Yank) too! I selected a Pale Ale and with the band striking up at a volume that jarred my tired senses I headed outside onto the deck.
Being away from people for a few minutes was nice, it allowed me to process things and understand where I was at…standing on a damp deck in Seattle looking at aeroplanes.
To my right and parked as close to the building we were in/on as possible was an Angola Airlines 777 looking very smart in its red and orange paint…behind that was a Dreamlifter, one of the bloated 747’s that flies the globe transporting bits of 787 around, such a cool job I reckon and a pretty cool plane too.
The Harlots came out to see me as the racket inside was a bit much for them too and not a huge amount of people had turned up. They caught me watching in amazement as the Air NZ 787 (ZK-NKI) out by the paint shop fired up its engines for a test, I was hoping it was going to take off on its delivery flight but it was just going through the last of a battery of tests.
“That took some organising I can tell you”
I looked at Mr Harlot but his delivery was so dead-pan that I couldn’t fathom out if he was joking or not…. The Harlots are the kind of people that would get a real buzz from pulling off a stunt like that and I still half-believe that they could have done it.
Either way it was cool and we stood for a while checking out flight plans for Everett Field to see if it was scheduled to fly tonight and being dedicated aviation geeks we would have waited, hell, I would have slept in the car to see it take off.
But it wasn’t to be and we spent some time talking to a very pretty and lovely young lady who seemed far too nice to be into aeroplanes but this was Seattle where EVERYBODY gets off on Boeing!
Then the time came when I felt I had done enough to be able to tell the Harlots that I was fading fast and that I was ready to leave whenever they were, my equilibrium was having an unequal struggle with the forces of tiredness and things were getting fuzzy. Thankfully my hosts were ready to head back too and off we went back into bear country to sit me down and rest.
But instead of turning right out of the carpark we turned left and took a little track round the back of the Boeing factory, Mr Harlot showed a pass to a security guard, Scarlet leaned out of the window and said something to him, he looked at me, nodded and we drove down under a small rocky cliff at the back of the factory.
In the cliff was a barred cave entrance with what looked like an ATM beside it.
We got out of the SUV and walked towards the cave, as we approached a heavy glass screen slid up and blocked the entrance but we could still see inside.
Approaching the bars and a low rail we peered inside but could see nothing much until Mr Harlot fed a $50 bill into the ATM-looking machine and a light came on. Holy Cow!! Inside was the Boeing Dragon! It is a well-kept secret but every Boeing employee with a clearance above Alpha 7007 knows that Boeing keep the dragon there to heat the factory and smelt small amounts of aluminium for when custom parts are needed.
I swear the dragon was green but Scarlot Harlot assures me that it was purple…apparently, it is OK to talk about this secret because nobody will believe me but if you believe in Chemtrails and the Flat Earth then you will believe in the Boeing dragon…
I was still overawed by the size of the Boeing factory but then the USA is a big place and so it still seemed to scale, put that lot down in Hamilton NZ and it would look just huuuuge it has a bigger floor area than the whole of Helensville (which isn’t where I live so don’t come looking for me)!
Driving back to a house was a nice feeling, even though they could still have been serial killers or swingers, I felt a sense of relaxation that one tends not to get when staying with family on the other side of the world, don’t get me wrong, I love my family but with friends there are less expectations, even though such expectations may only be in one’s head.
Swooping up the drive towards a house I knew so well from google earth it was that surreal ‘strange but familiar” feeling not déjŕ vu but something much weirder.
The garage door swung up revealing their taste in cars, German for her (oh dear, most of the people who have nearly killed me on the roads drove German cars) and Italian for him (OK if it isn’t dark and /or raining) but to Mr Harlots credit his Ferrari isn’t red it is silver and THAT boys and girls is motherlovin’ cool!!! It looks gorgeous!!
Up some steps and into the house, which although it isn’t huge by American standards is actually pretty massive and tastefully furnished too, it felt comfortable, somewhere I could fall apart gracefully.
But you know I don’t judge people by their material possessions, I either like or do not like, no what was good about it was that I knew that in a house this size I would be in a guest bedroom far from the master bedroom and I am really not comfortable being in a position where I might have to walk past my hosts bedroom in the night in need of poos and wees….big fear that one is, I might be naked, or fart or they might be arguing or worse still having sex.
The fish tank was very impressive and it was a hoot to meet a cat I have known from pictures for most of her life.
I was shown to my room and adjoining toilet; I was shown which window to look out of if I heard bears and I was lent a phone charger as mine was in the hold of a 777 battling its way through minging weather to an unplanned stop in Fiji.
I had a drink of Vegemite to soothe my nerves and straighten out the kinks caused by not sleeping on the plane, I was dead on my feet at LHR and should have slept on the plane but Greenland and Lakes n’ Stuff kept me up so by the time we got back to Harlot HQ I had been on the go for around 21 hours and that is not a state I thrive in.
If it wasn’t for the fact that there were new and cool things to do I think I might have still been asleep in a hire car in YVR car rental pick up yard if I was left to my own devices…I done good, so far I had seen Bald Eagles, nearly got us searched at the border and had avoided buying legal weed, touched things I shouldn’t have, watched a new Air NZ 787 start up, learnt that Angola has an airline, seen the Boeing dragon and met a cat on the internet.
Back at Chez Harlot I had an All-Bran Muffin because that is how we met in the first instance, Scarlet Harlot liked my Trip Report from Portugal (Mr Harlot is Portuguese) in it was a reference to All Bran…
“One of the hotel guests (A lady who was most definitely not a medium) came down to breakfast every day and instead of tucking in to all the culinary delights of Portugal sat down and staunchly placed a giant-sized packet of “All Bran” cereal (This is a high-fibre and gentle remedy for people who don’t do poos very much and would really like too) between her and the rest of the world, it stood there, defiant and poised, a beacon of Britishness in a sea of European decadence. (Ha! I shouldn’t bother with that stuff Cybil, if you need to loosen the bowels just eat some of this foreign muck, that’ll shift anything, its stopping it will be the problem then my dear!).”
All I needed now was a good poo and an encounter with a nocturnal bear on the lawn (in my pyjamas) and I would be able to just sit and chill for the next two days having had the best time ever…but what happened the next day surpassed all that…
I slept like a dead thing for a while but had to wake up and do my toilet regime that was still stubbornly on NZ time and in the process broke the toilet cistern and fixed it again but not properly.
I was in fear of waking the Harlots up in case they thought I needed help but what help can you give a half-naked white guy suffering from jet-lag with his hand in the cistern??? Luckily nobody had to find out that night and I managed a reasonable sleep but nothing like sufficient because my mind was racing, throttle to the stop just thinking about stuff but I did drift in and out of slumber enough to feel my usual “don’t do mornings” self at breakfast time.
Today was the big day, we were going to head down to The Museum of Flight for an absolute orgy of aviation history! Anywhere with a Super Constellation outside must be a great place to go!! After that it was the Boeing factory tour.
So, off we headed down the highway to two unforgettable experiences…The Museum of Flight and The Boeing Factory Tour….I feared I might die from happiness!
The weather looked a little sketchy but for Seattle I guess it was fine as it wasn’t actually raining and we arrived under overcast skies at The Museum. It was around this time that I discovered Mr Harlot knows an awful lot about trains, he is like an onion, he reveals himself in layers, all of them fascinating… I saw him repair a handbag with Loctite Thread Lock later in the day which was totally surreal, I would never have guessed it could be done.
Scarlet is less mysterious, what you see is what you get, a genuine and lovely person who never seems to tire and is very adept at keeping jet-lagged Kiwis awake with things to do and see.
The Museum, well, I think at this point my brain really did explode, the restrictions of forum software mean I cannot begin to do it justice because I can’t upload the 100 pics I took but if you want to see a plane, from any period in history it will be here.
I touched a B17!!! I went inside Concorde, I nearly made love to a Super Constellation and I have a pic of every fighter from both world wars and Korea!
Scarlet Harlot was all teary-eyed over the 787 because it was the first to fly and they were at Everett Field when it flew for the very first time. I was numb with joy at going inside the first 747 and utterly shocked by what a claustrophobic and tiny thing Concorde was.
There is a huge room with planes hanging from the ceiling, too much to take in during a single visit, you could go there once a week for a year and still not take it all in….go there, do it before you die.
So, that ended, we had burgers for lunch and high-tailed it to Everett Field for the Boeing Factory tour, no photography allowed so no pics to show you but OMG it was worth the effort!
Our tour guide had hairy chops, like an old pioneer and a very lyrical way of explaining things, like he was sitting by the fireside in a log cabin with an audience of wide-eyed 5 year olds…he was very entertaining and did the job well, facts and figures but delivered in a non-confronting way with humour and energy.
They show you a 5-minute propaganda video for Boeing that is actually pretty good and then load you on buses for the drive to the factory and you get out of the bus and look up at the hanger doors and nearly fall over, it is huuuuuuge!! So huge that it used to create its own weather inside and they had to install an HRV ventilation system to stop it raining inside the building every time someone dropped a spanner.
We marched along a massive service corridor and went up in a lift to the viewing gantry and you think, “yeah, big building” and then you reset your parameters, fit it all into context and go “Holy Poop! There are six 777’s in here and they look small!”
Each hanger builds either 787’s, 777’s or 767’s and 747’s, the venerable 737 is built a few miles down the road.
I was geeking out at some of the jigs and workstations they use to build these planes….wow! Just wow! I was lost for words and still am because it really is a peak experience for an aviation geek, I thought the maintenance hangars at AKL were big but I think the toilets at Boeing are bigger!
I learnt so much about how planes are made and a heap about the history of Boeing and really got in touch with my inner aviation geek.
As we boarded the bus we drove past the paint hangers, which are a blast on their own and back to the gift shop where I bought some stuff for the kids and headed back to the house in the woods.
It was here that I met a friend of the Harlots, I shall call her ‘Trainee Crazy Cat Lady’ or TCCL for short and she gets that title because she is a remote worker (much like me) and is using that freedom to tour the USA and Canada in her car with her cat along for the ride, staying at Air B n B’s and other alternative lodgings.
I liked TCCL a lot, she has that upbeat humour, independence and lust for life that I find very appealing. I should probably have married her there and then but by this time in the trip there was a bit of a waiting list so I made do with beating her (and everyone else) at “Cards Against Humanity”. It was playing this that sealed the deal because she is as twisted in the melon as I am and she very nearly beat me…respect TCCL, I hope that wherever you are you are having an awesome time.
This was my last night with the Harlots, and although I love them dearly they let me down badly because there were no bears in their garden that night either, maybe they peaked at having the Air NZ 787 fired up just for me but really, they could have made just that little bit more effort….Mr Harlot gave me some old waffle about it not being Bear season but I’m not buying it, they just didn’t care enough to try…I shall return…in bear season in the hopes that they might redeem themselves.
So, Sunday morning 24th July 2016, we headed up the highway back to Vancouver as I was flying out that evening and I needed to see Vancouver and buy some Haida (First Nations) Art for Mrs J.
TCCL was following behind us, maybe two hours behind and she had the strangest experience which I will relate shortly.
The weather was stunning on the drive back to YVR and I saw Mount Rainier and wished I had time to climb it (one day maybe) and we were in good spirits although I was still badly jet-lagged and generally over-stimulated.
Crossing the border was the usual melee and we each decide who we hated in the cars around us, I did not point at anything or touch anything or mention anything that in a court of law might be used against me…nobody asked me to get on the ground.
A lady in uniform asked me where I was going and why and did anyone in the car have a gun to my back or had they asked me to engage in moral turpitude or force me to commit any act against my will. I screamed for help but Mr Harlot hit the gas and we were in Canada again.
Canada does feel different from the USA, lighter and more vibrant but that might just be all in my head…however, a nation that has access to TimBits will always be a happy nation.
So we are driving up the road and comms are occurring between the Harlot and TCCL…it transpires that during her time in Washington state she had had a text conversation with persons unknown about the purchase of legal weed. She disposed of what she didn’t smoke before leaving Seattle and as she came through Canadian Border Control she was hit with Mr Harlot’s worst nightmare…stop and search!
They took her phone, looked in it and showed it to her “you have texts relating to the purchase of Marijuana on your phone, you know it is illegal here in Canada?”
The outcome wasn’t too 1984 and she was allowed into Canada after they had strip-searched her cat but the lesson here boys and girls is THEY REALLY ARE WATCHING YOU!!!
We headed into a part of town that had everything we needed, it was down by the water and full of restaurants and arty shops. Granville Island it is called and because there was a waiting list at Edible Canada of 25 minutes we headed out and bought the first batch of Haida Art before eating and heading up the street to the village markets to check out the views and buy more art. I also bought T Shirts, I love Haida Art, I loved Granville Island and I especially loved the food at Edible Canada.
After this it was time to go and meet TCCL and go check out more of what Vancouver has to offer. The weather was stunning, hottest day of the year so far and everywhere that was outdoors was packed! Parking was impossible but there is so much to see that we drove around and looked at as much as possible without it being too rushed. TCCL and I leapt out of the car at times to take pics and buy stuff…the beautiful people were everywhere, I just looked and felt that Vancouver is somewhere people can be very happy indeed, I loved the place!
And then, as with all good things just as I was feeling normal again it came to an end, I had to go retrieve my Bovril, avoid having my cabin baggage weighed and take an Air NZ 777 back to AKL.
It was with a heavy heart that I bade farewell to TCCL and the Harlots, I really should have stayed another few days but one has to keep one’s nose to the grindstone and pay for all this travel.
My Bovril was returned to me as promised and despite probably being on a camera somewhere, touching something I shouldn’t, I was allowed through the formalities and into the Koru Lounge where I drank a lot of Ginger Ale and ate blue cheese and crackers in the reflective solitude that is my long-haul persona.
It had been a hoot seeing all the people I had seen and doing all the things I had done. It was very much up to expectations and meeting the Harlots was an unforgettable experience but I was done, completely spent and the only thing keeping me going was the knowledge that when I got home I would land at 5 am and be able to go home and stay in bed for 24 hrs…right now that was my dearest wish, no disrespect to anybody but I really needed that.
Slumped in the lounge I started to decompress, gazing out at the 777 waiting on the tarmac to take me home. I moved seats because the guy sitting opposite me looked too smug and moved again because the woman sitting next to me reminded me of someone I don’t like….then it was time to go the gate.
I admit that I like to board first if possible and that is the same for a lot of people so I shouldn’t complain but I was standing at the gate, by the paper spewing out of the computer I knew boarding would commence in seconds and some blonde harridan of a certain age, with entitlement issues pushed in front of me and stood so as not to allow me to regain my position. “Oh well, if it is that important to you” I thought, I wasn’t even first in line, there were people with babies and wheelchairs in pole position so I let it slide.
Karma is a funny thing though, the blonde harridan spent so much time making her importance known to the gate staff that the gate staff were twitching and then her passport and boarding pass caused issues and it all looked like becoming a mini-series so a kindly Asian FA opened the second gate entry and waved me through with a knowing look….haha! Eat it blondie!!!
I was on a free Koru upgrade and in Premium Economy, “Mr Jafa, look! Your seat is right by the door!” said the FA and there it was left hand end of the first row behind the wall in the centre of the plane…nice! Couldn’t have been better!
What happened next was jaw-dropping as the click-bait would say…a couple of blonde German backpackers, one male and one female, probably an item, came on, took the right-hand side pair of the row of four I was sat in and commenced scrubbing every surface of the seat, armrest, tray, carpet, the works, with alcohol wipes. Teutonically industrial they were, in their quest to rid their personal space of germs….I imagined that sex for these too would be a protracted and paranoid affair involving hazmat suits and lots of bleach.
There was nobody in the seat to my left so I chucked all my crap in there, put my backpack in the overhead and took my shoes off. The legroom was astounding, there was a menu and proper steel cutlery and sparkling wine to drink while we waited for the plane to board and things to happen.
I had deliberately saved this upgrade for the final leg as YVR-AKL is 14 hours and I wanted to make the best of it.
After a few weeks the Germans had decided the seats were clean enough to sit in, we were given goodie bags with comfortable things in them and the FAs strapped themselves in.
One was just to my left and facing my direction, “Does it ever get old?” I asked “Hell yeah” he replied and sat looking at the floor in a wistful way, as if staring into a yuletide log fire, reminiscing about butter drips from crumpets and the reassuring purr of kittens.
The time came to depart and we trundled out onto the runway, heavy with food, fuel, bags people, it seemed to take a while to taxi into position and then, with a triumphant roar and a sense of relief we hurtled through the twilight of Canada and lurched into the air.
There was a horrible grinding noise below my feet, as if important maintenance involving power tools was happening but the FA didn’t cry or cross himself so I assumed it was OK.
Then I became aware of the weight of the aircraft, it was revving hard, oodles of thrust churning out behind us but it was barely staggering into the air, it felt sluggish and overweight (just like me most evenings) and I looked across to the port window to see how slowly we were inching our way skywards.
“Drone, rattle, grind” it seemed to take forever to heave ourselves out of the clutches of the earthly plane and nothing happened, FA’s sat and stared, the Germans searched their surroundings for imaginary lice and Ebola mites, the 777 kept grinding slowly upwards, slowly, inexorably gaining speed and altitude against the forces of gravity.
It didn’t happen all at once but it did become noticeably quieter, the grinding under the floor stopped, the engines sounded smoother and less troubled and lights came on, FA’s scurried about preparing to feed us and I sorted my entertainment choices for the next 14 hours.
I had a film to finish watching, a lot of sleep to catch up on and some serious unwinding to do.
Food came and was excellent, booze flowed, the Germans inspected their food as if they expected it to be designed to kill them, slowly and the girl shot me a death-stare for putting my crap in the seat next to me…I exhaled in her general direction and displayed a stiff upper lip.
The flight had its moments, the weather around Hawaii was still pants and we stayed out east for ages, barging south through turbulence and staying low until we had burned enough fuel to get high and go above it.
I imagined our 777 ploughing through grey skies, buffeted by the crap weather that seemed to have decided to envelope the entire Pacific region and I suddenly had an acute feeling of how tiny we were, from inside it seemed like a community in a big-as plane but in the grand scheme of things we were barely a dot….it felt very humbling.
Films, comedy shows, plenty of sleep and more than enough turbulence, that sums up this flight. I visited all the toilets, I watched the germ-free Germans express disgust at everything around them and I chatted with the FA who was a good Kiwi sort and profoundly homesick and at some point we gained altitude and left most of the turbulence behind, I slept again until breakfast.
I love the last 2 hours of a long-haul flight, the way the mood changes, people come back to life and start to get their .... together and become human again, rather than human cargo.
But life is never that simple, the skies over Auckland were lumpy, wet and dark, there were delays in landing so we sat in a holding pattern out to the East and just as we started our approach we had to pull out of it because the wind direction changed and we had to get back into the queue and wait for 8 other flights to land before we could go in for another go but from the West this time…we spiralled around in wet skies for ages but eventually it was our turn and the airshow counted down the vertical metres until we made a lumpy landing on a rain-soaked runway about 45 mins late.
Never mind, I was home, already racked with nostalgia for this past 13 days, relieved to be back in AKL and anticipating a good long sleep in a bed that smelled of me and wasn’t up in the sky.
I grabbed my bags which we very wet and made my way to customs where I was very honest about my wooden First Nations artefacts, my probably illegal Bovril and two highly suspect Battenberg Cakes….”What is a Battenberg Cake?” asked the Indian customs guy, I told him and winced ready to be fined and beaten with sticks for attempting to bring contraband into the country, “Enjoy them then, sounds nice” and he stamped me through as no threat to the flora and fauna of Aotearoa.
Phew! I emerged blinking into the soggy pre-dawn found my Ute in the carpark and vowed not to fly anywhere for a few weeks.
48 hours later I was back, boarding an AKL-WLG flight but that is another story…….
Last edited by Jafa39; May 9, 2017 at 2:50 pm
