19 hours as a human pretzel

Being tall has its advantages. You can usually get a good view at concerts, you don't have to take up the hem on your jeans, and you can always reach the top shelf at the supermarket.

But when it comes to flying, the vertically challenged have the last laugh (or slumber, lucky things).

Checking in for my flight to New York was relatively uneventful. The queues at check-in were a little slow...



but my flight was good to go.



The Air Tahiti plane was ready for boarding (yes, that's two Qantas jets behind it)...


and we did take-off... eventually. About an hour late, as everyone's stomachs began to rumble.

We were momentarily quietened with pretzels before the familiar smell of warming "aeroplane food" wafted towards the back of the plane.


Penne with chicken in a tomato sauce with green beans;
smoked salmon on potato salad;
cheesecake slice in a berry sauce;
and a bread roll, crackers and cheese.

Aeroplane food is always consistently... drab. It's a tough call to serve up palatable pre-cooked meals. The salmon and the cheesecake were pretty good I have to say.

There was another meal too: a snack of pizza (it took me a while to work out what it was) and a serve of fruit salad before we touched down at Papeete, Tahiti after 7 hours and 15 minutes hurtling through the skies.



The Tahitian ukele singers were welcome entertainment but it was a quick transfer to another plane bound for New York, a smaller Airbus. This one still had individual in-flight entertainment screens, but the Trivia Game wasn't interactive on this one. I'd had a good series of rounds against seats 27E, 27F, 29B and 36G =)

There was more food... using food to break the boredom? Well I never! =)


Stuffed hake fish with ginger sauce and saffron rice with vegetables;
shrimp quenelle and marinated cucumber salad;
coconut cake; and a bread roll.

(It was about as appetising as it looks)


Buttered crepes with guava compote;
teriyaki sliced chicken breat with cucumber and peppers;
fresh tropical fruit salad; and a bread roll with jam.

The crepes were super sweet, and I couldn't taste any guava but the flaked almonds were pretty tasty.

Most entertainment value during the flight was not the movies (I wept pathetically throughout In Her Shoes) but the US Customs declaration form. Click on the pic below to see an enlarged version in flickr.



And then finally, finally, after 19 hours of sleep-smattered contortioning, we landed at New York's JFK.

New York had received its first snowfall late Saturday night and all was white and Christmassy. My first view of New York on ground level was thus:



So even though I'd been in the air 19 hours plus transfer times, I arrived in New York only 4 hours after I'd left Sydney.

Forget the whacked-out body clock.

It was time to eat.