Travel Day 2: LAX to VCE

On to day two of travel! Unfortunately I abruptly wakeup to an alarm on the clock. No, not my clock. The hotel clock. At least it was set for 6:00am and not earlier but...it was set for 6:00am. At first I thought it was a fire alarm. That definitely would not have been fun. I manage to get it turned off in my zombie state and promptly pass out again. My second wakeup is a natural one just after 9:00am. Oh, and let's not forget, daylight savings time is today. Thank goodness for automatic clocks and smartphones otherwise I'd be royally messed up.

The Hyatt Regency has a 24/7 market to grab some bites if you don't want to dine. It's more of a coffee and snack market, but it does the job. Like all hotels, the food is not cheap. A medium black coffee and relatively small yogurt parfait set me back $16. Still cheaper than room service which charges a $4.00 delivery fee and automatic 20% gratuity. And the oatmeal was $14 by itself. Who knows, maybe it's a giant oatmeal.

My hand for scale...and I don't have big hands...

Today's flight leaves at 4:30pm so I hang out in the room until the noon checkout and then catch the shuttle back to the airport. The driver this morning was a lovely man, very chatty talking about Hawaii, the Maui fire and traveling to Paris. Nice start to the morning.

Leaving the friendly driver, I traverse back along the no-longer-dark walkway to the terminal. The flight today is LAX (Los Angeles) to CDG (Paris) via Air France. And the check-in area for the airline is right where I enter the terminal. That's convenient. This flight is my splurge for the trip - business class! Check-in was a breeze, simply showed my passport and got my ticket. The agent informed me where the oneworld lounge is - telling me where it is is one thing, now to actually find it. But first things first, TSA.

TSA at LAX is interesting. After check-in, you walk to an escalator where security checks your ticket before you proceed. Once upstairs, you wind and wind and wind thru the maze. I felt like an ant following the trail of all other ants. At the end of the snaking maze is a checkpoint where they have two lines of people. They stop you here and two-at-a-time, direct you to walk next to each other thru a section with a security dog. They repeat this process for each set of two people. I've never experienced anything like that before. After that I snake a bit more to get to the TSA screening. Interesting how there are many lanes of TSA yet only two are in use. Doesn't seem very efficient considering there is a line of people. It's organized chaos. I get thru TSA with no issue and make my way into the terminal.

The terminal is large and bustling. Many shops and eateries everywhere. Would I be me without getting lost trying to find the lounge? Nope. After a bit of googling - yes, yes, the ticketing agent did tell me what floor - I manage to find the lounge level but don't see "oneworld". Of course, the lounge I stop at to inquire about where the oneworld lounge is...is the oneworld lounge. I just missed the very small sign low on the wall that says "oneworld". At least I found it!

I find a single seat and sit down to wait - it's not yet 1:00pm so I have time to kill.

After finishing the first journal I go in search of food. The selection is actually quite unimpressive. There's about six different salads - which I suppose is nice if you want salad - the usual apples (red delicious, yuck) and oranges, a soup and some kind of stroganoff thing. At least they have rice. I get a little of a salad I thought was called "Mediterranean" but is more like a Caesar with corn chips, strange but tasty, and a scoop of rice on the side. Just enough to tide me over before the flight. Seeing more of the lounge as I got food, it is quite spacious with plenty of nice seating. It's also very quiet - also nice.

It's nearing boarding time so I collect my things and make my way to the gate. Like last night, it's a long walk thru the corridors to get to the section of gates I'll be departing from. It's fairly quiet in this wing of the terminal. As soon as I sit down ready to wait for boarding, they call my zone to begin boarding. Talk about good timing.

The interesting, and slightly unnerving, gate check process does not involve my ticket. No no no, that would be normal. It's facial recognition. Not sure how I feel about it. You walk up to a gate - sort of like what you'd have entering a subway - and look at the camera. And boom, you're thru. I assume they must use the picture on your passport when they scan it to check-in...no clue how they'd have my picture otherwise. Freaky.

I follow all the French businessmen down the ramp to the plane. I'm quite the contrast, me in my purple socks and Birkenstocks. This looks like an older plane, so no fancy door to enclose my seat. Oh well, I'll survive.

Before takeoff is a drink selection of orange juice or champagne. Tough one, but hello orange juice! Goes really well with my mint gum.

Although sadly I feel like I need a hazmat suit on. A guy a couple seats over takes off his mask to cough his lungs out. And continues to cough over and over. Sans mask. Not sure the logic behind that. Even though I have my mask on, my eyeballs feel contaminated. Hopefully this orange juice will give me a boost of vitamin C.

A long taxi to the runway - backlog of takeoffs - and before I know it we're passing over Nevada! A bit of turbulence at that point.

The "meal" is a six-course affair. Starting with a guacamole tarte with shrimp. Interesting...would not recommend this for a menu. The pastry was good, the guacamole was good, and the shrimp was good, but together? Odd. Maybe my palette just isn't sophisticated enough. It came with a box of cheese crackers. Pretty good.

Next was a starter with salad, bread and duck. The bread was fantastic, warm and soft - I got the kalamata one. The salad simple but good. The duck...is duck. Can't say I'm a fan. And then beets...yuck. Yeah, this meal was striking out with me.

Then the main - I chose the cod and quinoa with "seafood sauce". The quinoa was good, nice and fluffy. Not sure I can describe the cod accurately but it was almost jello soft? Those two words - cod and jello - shouldn't go together...but that's as good as I'll get trying to describe it. Overall, tasty.

I passed on the cheese course. It looked like three cheeses - one aged cheese and two fuzzy cheeses. I like my cheese sans fuzz.

Dessert is your choice of fruit or a chocolate thing or both. Why yes I'll take both, thank you for asking. The fruit is good and the chocolate is like a fancy fudge candy bar.

Unfortunately, as comfortable as the flight is, halfway thru the flight we got turbulence and it continues - for the rest of the flight. All 5+ hours remaining. Needless to say I did not sleep a wink as hard as I tried. I'm so exhausted my eyeballs are burning.

Regardless of the sleeplessness and turbulence, the service was impeccable. No complaints there!

One hour before landing is breakfast! Choice of continental, omelette or salmon cream cheese bagel. I choose the continental - yogurt, fruit, granola (cereal) and croissant. Tasty breakfast. The coffee was definitely needed.

Finally it's time to land. Thank goodness. Disembarked and on my way, it's a bit of a walk to the security checkpoint to enter the Schengen Area (basically within this Area once you're in, you don't need to cross border control to enter other countries in the Area). This is always the most stressful part for me, makes me question whether I missed any need documents. But thankfully not. I make it thru and follow the signs for Terminal 2G. Unlike LAX, CDG has good signage. Now for my CDG (Paris) to VCE (Venice) flight.

Terminal 2G is a shuttle ride away. At first, looking at the sign I thought it was only 10' (feet) away. But I think the 10' is actually 10 minutes, because the shuttle went much further than 10 feet. Remember the movie Speed? I think the shuttle driver was trying to recreate it.

Safely at Terminal 2G, first impression is small. Like, inter-island terminal small. Which I guess this really is what it is for Paris. Basically the "domestic" flights. I locate the Air France lounge and oh my days. It's packed. And holy heck...so...freaking...warm! If this was in Hawaii you'd think the AC was broken. I find a seat, sit my butt down and breathe. I get a bite to eat - a French sandwich of sliced meat, butter and a pickle. A little later I grab a pain au chocolat and Perrier. I decide to head out of the lounge to the main terminal to walk around and find seating - just too warm in that lounge. This terminal was recently renovated but it's pretty funky - in what I think is a good way. The design encapsulates the '70s airport lounge in a retro vibe and it's just a lot of fun! They even have old school arcade games! And did I mention there's a fountain? In the middle of the terminal. That was definitely funky on the what-the-heck side, but they say water is relaxing.

The retro vibe continues into the gate area with the building I walk into having panels of glass exterior in different colors - pink, blue, yellow, etc. Wow. Like no other airport terminal I've ever been in. More childhood and neighbor island travel vibes - walking to the plane across the tarmac.

The plane is a small jet with 2-2 seating. Somehow I managed to get an empty seat next to me. And unexpectedly...another meal. I was a little surprised considering the flight is only an hour and twenty minutes. The desert was the best part.

Another flight of turbulence, it's just my lucky day, and we land right on time. Now to find the parents waiting at arrivals. Again, good signage here so I navigate to the exit without issue. And since I already went thru passport control in CDG I walk right through, how nifty!

Right outside the exit is the parents. Back together again at last!

Lucky me, they reserved a water taxi to get from the airport to the hotel. This trip cost about $135 for three people and one bag. And dang it's a nice boat.

There are cheaper options to get between island and airport but the water taxi is the quickest route and my body's dislike of motion means I much prefer the quickest route possible. Although too, our hotel is at the last stop for the water bus so takes longer. May not be as bad if you're more centrally located.

Arrived at the hotel - Palazzo Veneziano in Dosoduro - checked in and time for drinks! Amazingly I'm still awake. Must be running in adrenaline at this point. I get a non-alcoholic gin concoction with blackberry. Very tasty.

Now time for some food. Mom suggests a cicchetti place about a block away. Cicchetti is the Italian version of tapas. Any kind of strange concoction goes on top of a piece of bread. The place is called Alsquero Osteria. It was jam packed with people, must be a popular spot. Each piece, about the size of my palm, is 2€. Quick and cheap bites that was just enough for the three of us to share.

From left to right, top to bottom: brie with some kind of pesto/tapenade (I think it tasted a bit like crack seed lemon peel), smoked salmon with pink peppercorns, baccala mantecato, jamon with green olive tapenade, ham and egg. The missing piece was carmelized onions and a walnut in top of a cheese spread, although couldn't decipher exactly which one.

Good end to a long two days. Now time to pass out and catch up on some sleep. The fun starts tomorrow!

Walking along the canal between the hotel and cicchetti.

Ciao!