First leg: Brutal-ish

So I'm currently awaiting my flight to San Francisco.

Check in was brutal. Brutal. Brutal. The initial parts were okay..nothing too bad. Luggage put through, tickets/boarding passes printed. Fine. Then came the first security check point. I've brought along a duffel bag as my carry on and a small little shoulder bag as my second "personal item".. The guy at the security check point looked at my duffel and told me to put it in the cage, ensuring it would fit in there. It sort of didn't, so I tried explaining to him how I've never had trouble with it. He wouldn't take any of it. I was getting a little nervous because I have a lot of important stuff in there. So I flattened it and mushed it and put it in finally, tearing off the sign in the process..shh.

He glares at it, and says it's fine but my shoulder bag HAD to go into my duffel in order for it to go through AND I had to put it in the cage again. I was pissed. There are signs up all around the counter saying we're allowed one carry on bag and one "personal item" such as a laptop bag, purse, stroller..etc. This douche bag at the gate says "you have two BACKPACKS, you can't go through"

This other guy with me was in the same situation, he had a small backpack and a regular sized one, and he wouldn't let him through either. So we started bitching this security guy out, and some other agent comes out. We argue with her, and I'm livid because the guy now says my duffel is going to be too big anyways and I can't go through. So once again, I shove the bag into the damn cage to show them it fits and then he says "but your other backpack isn't in there"..

I proceed to tell him off, "look, we are allowed a purse on the plane. I don't care if you want to call me gay or whatever, go for it. This is my purse and unless you're saying all those signs out there are wrong, I'm taking it on. Now let me through." By now he was going a bit red in the face and threatened to call security. I called him on his bluff, he never did.

The other woman finally lets me through. This entire process took about 30 minutes to deal with. They blamed the Americans in the end, "this is their policy, not ours." Uh, more like, "we are incompetent, illiterate, uninformed, ignorant idiots that don't know how to flipping run a security check point."

Then there was some crazy man in the holding area who had to deal with some medical insurance/visa bill issue last minute with his dad on the phone. The guy was in his 30s.. and kept going, "Daddy, I'm scared. Daddy, tell me you love me. No, you have to say it. Say it again please, I don't want to fly away now."........ HOLY HELL. That was very disturbing. Everyone around me was snickering.. can you blame us? Thankfully there's no cell phone service on the plane because he was on that phone for a good 20 minutes.

Anyways, United flight to Sydney was a pretty tight squeeze.. not the most comfortable. Not gonna lie. Didn't want to take pictures of the food.. it was THAT cramped. Funny though, on both flights (to SF and Sydney) a medical emergency arose.. I wish I had my First Aid certification, then I could put on my light and be like, "yes, I have medical training" :)

Errrrrr... okay. In Melbourne now.. shopped all day for food and necessities with Esther's Aunt and then housing at her cousin's for the time being. Will update tomorrow when I move in to our apartment.

Is it weird that the jet lag hasn't hit me yet?