It's 9 am on Friday, June 6 as I type this. I've been in California for one night and one day. No, I don't miss Chapel Hill.
The trip over here was relatively horrendous. Anna and I arrived at the airport about an hour and a half before our flight, waved goodbye to her dad, then sailed through security with no problem. After purchasing water and deciding against eating at one of the four or five stomach-destroying "food" establishments, we sat around people watching and taking pictures. Finally, we boarded the plane and set off for Charlotte, NC.
The Charlotte airport is clean. Very clean. It's also really well organized and run, and there's a really decent selection of eateries. Anna and I, however, did not choose well. Seeing as we had a layover that was to last almost three hours, we decided to go to one of the few sit-down restaurants in the airport. We chose the NASCAR-themed, "Stock Car Cafe." Darrell, our server, was very nice. I ordered a beer (not realizing it was $7) and the "Stock Burger." Anna also ordered the burger. We sat and talked and waited for our food, surveying the spectacularly tacky decor. Among the car hoods signed by various famous drivers and then checkered flags, Anna noticed a lithograph of Dale Earnhardt. He looked exactly like my dad.
We devoured our sub-par burgers and fries, all the while remarking on their utter tastelessness. Anna found a fried shrimp mixed in with her fries, which was terribly unfortunate.
Upon leaving the Stock Car Cafe, we decided to wander about. The amount of people in the airport seemed to wax and wane on a 15-20 minute schedule, though our gate remained completely populated the entire time. We settled near the end of concourse B, talked about comics and rude people who stare too much. After being creeped out by a gentleman to Anna's left, we decided to leave that area and go sit closer to our own gate. Anna found an outlet next to some chairs at gate B2 (right across from where we needed to be) and we sat there, people watching a bit more and writing haikus.
The plane ride to LAX was rather miserable. We both had middle seats between two people who did not talk unless they wanted to complain. Anna fell asleep at one point before the plane took off, waking to a hope that she'd slept through most of the flight. This was not the case. The plane hadn't taken off yet. Once it did, however, we were alerted by our captain that the in flight movie would be "Fool's Gold" and that three hours into the trip, we'd hit a bunch of turbulence. Hooray. I drank another beer half way through.
Since we were delayed in leaving, we were delayed in landing. It didn't end there, though. We couldn't taxi in to the terminal area for about 15 minutes after landing. Then there were problems with the jetway, which lasted another 15 minutes. Finally, we stepped foot in the airport an hour after our itinerary indicated. Oh yeah, it took 10 minutes for our bags to appear at baggage claim.
Alice and Lena arrived right after we got our bags, which was lovely. We all decided the best course of action was to find an In-N-Out Burger immediately. There was no In-N-Out to be found around LAX, so we just drove back to Thousand Oaks and ate at the location in Newbury Park. Delicious.
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