Mr. and Mrs. Deals Once Went to Australia – Part 1

This is the first of a two part series (yep, I’m building up some excitement)…

About 9 years ago Mrs. Deals and I embarked on a trip to Australia. We were students at the time and close friends and had planned on traveling to Australia on a study abroad program with a few other friends. We all decided it would be fun to arrive in Australia a few days before the program started and do some exploring on our own. Truth be told, Mrs. Deals and I were both booked on miles and we didn’t have much of a choice. Luckily, Mrs. Deals and I landed the same flight from LA to Sydney so we were all set to be travel buddies. This was going to be our very first experience traveling together.

At the time, I thought Mrs. Deals was the most prepared traveler. I remember being at her house and her parents had her all set to go (months before we were set to leave). I mean I hadn’t even thought about packing, but her mom practically had her all packed (something I learned that is not uncommon at all with my mother-in-law).

Mrs. Deals has some family in the LA area and she figured it would be a great opportunity to make a visit before the 13+ hour flight over the Pacific. My plan was to just meet her at LAX and be good to go on to the next leg. This is where the fun started to begin. Mrs. Deals was of course delayed thanks to a snowstorm in Texas (I’m always shocked when I hear about snow in Texas).  She finally makes it to LAX and what was supposed to be a 2 day visit turned into a quick overnight.

For me, it was a different story. I had a flight from Logan (Boston though you all know that) to LAX through Philly before meeting up with Mrs. Deals. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, flying through Philly sucks. I don’t think I’ve ever had a good experience. This particular experience was one I hope not to have again. After being delayed from the gate for no good reason (oh right, because thats just how it is at airports) we missed our departure spot in line when the staff realized that the first class plates weren’t on board. Are you kidding me? Let’s just say, after 2+ hours, first class didn’t care and everyone just wanted to take off.

So we did take off finally, once the plates arrived. But here’s the best part. The flight attendant forgot to close the latch on the storage compartment. I think you can probably guess where this is going. When a plane takes off it starts moving at an upward angle. That’s not a good thing for plates that are not secure in a compartment. CRASH. All of them broke right on takeoff. Back in coach we were all laughing and clapping our hands, it had become comical.

This was around the time where airlines started charging for meals on flights. After finally taking off they started meal service (for first class they couldn’t use the plates, ha). Well, one disgruntled passenger who had just flown from London and was connecting to LAX was furious about them charging and got up to say something (I can’t say I disagreed after that fiasco). Well, a confrontation began between the flight attendant and the passenger and we were almost directed back to the airport (luckily everyone cooled off).

After all that, I finally made it to LAX. But of course, I had about 45 minutes before I had to find the international terminal and hop on my flight to Australia. Oh and I had to find Mrs. Deals…

Tune in next week to hear the rest of the story.