I was up to all hours last night working on the briefing for Health Workforce Australia and had a little bit of trouble getting to sleep after I finally did get it all finished. So this morning I was glad to get a good sleep in. Indeed it was unfortunate that I actually had to get up to checkout at noon.
When I did I headed downstairs and settled my bill with The Keating and then settled in to wait for the car to arrive out of valet parking for the drive back to LA.
The drive was uneventful. I stopped off at a Walgreens on the way to grab some last minute supplies. Stopping for petrol was entertaining – complete with parking the car on the wrong side of the pump and then not being able to pay at the first 76 station because the automatic pay station needed zip code verification. At the Shell up the road adding a 0 before my Australian post code did the trick.
I dropped the car at Hertz and they were kind enough to drop my off at Terminal 3 at LAX in the E350 rather than putting me on the shuttle bus. I checked in with Virgin Australia quite early and then when I headed to security the TSA guy warned me that there wasn’t much to do at the Virgin America gates.
I didn’t heed his advice and headed through security. Inside it was a ghost town and I wandered around the empty gates taking a few photos before grabbing a late lunch at Burger King. I then found myself a comfortable seat and killed time watching a couple of movies on the iPad as the various VX flights came and went. Crowd watching kept me entertained – but I also made it through both Tyrannosaur and 50/50. Two highly emotional films and not ideal for watching in public.
The flight boarded early and they loaded the ‘premium’ customers even earlier. Felt like we were on the plane for an eternity before it even taxied. So I started watching My Week With Marilyn – a totally gorgeous film and Michelle Williams is just brilliant.
I decided on my usual strategy of trying to stay awake as long as possible and I also made it through Machine Gun Preacher and the god-awful Chronicle after the meal service. I’m going to take a couple of Unisom and try to get some decent sleep. Wish me luck.
