The USA Trip Diary – Part 2

The Diary Commences

By Trenna

The USA Travel Diary series starts HERE.

[GM:  Just so you know. In this series Trenna does mention spending the night with a man … a few times.  Nothing explicit is mentioned.]

[GM: at the start of the “My Trip” diary that Trenna was using it had a section for “En Route”.  These are the entries written there.]

En Route/Going There

20/10/81

Left Perth Airport at approximately 12 midnight, about six hours late. First stopover was Singapore. Approximately 4:30 am. For about an hour.

Next stop, Bombay, what a dump! From here on it was just one big stuff-up. 

We were supposed to stay 24 hours in this stinking joint but were advised we were on the next plane out, which was departing at 9 am. Thank God! This plane was going to Delhi, Frankfurt, Paris and finally London. Sort of a long way round considering we were supposed to go straight to London originally.

On arrival at Frankfurt for refuelling, which was supposed to take an hour, we were advised that Paris airport had been closed down due to a strike.

After a couple of drinks at the airport restaurant courtesy of Air India we re-boarded the plane and headed to Paris as the strike was now over. Well, when we arrived at Paris. Guess what? We had missed our connecting flight with British Airways. To say we were getting a bit jacked off would be an understatement.

We therefore had to stay the night in Paris courtesy of good old Air India again. 

After hanging around the airport for a while we were all bundled into a bus and driven to the Delfis Bois Des Roches Hotel. We nearly didn’t get there because the bus driver got lost. He had to stop and ask someone for directions.

We were treated to a typical French meal, chops, french fries and tomato sauce. Toni and I shared a room. We slept in a double bed and the pillow, if you could call it that, was weird. It looked like a 6 foot sausage. Our room number was 69.

Toni tried to ring Australia but we found it rather hard to explain to the guy at the reception desk what we wanted as he only spoke French.

The next morning we left Paris at 7 am. We flew out on a Singapore Airlines plane. Wow, what a difference from Air India. We arrived at approximately 8 am in London at long last, but our troubles didn’t end here. 

When we went to collect our luggage you guessed it, it had been mislaid. Our friends at Air India had forgotten to take it off the plane and it was now on its way to Frankfurt. That plane was due to arrive back in London at 9:40 am.

When it arrived we collected our luggage and then lugged it down to the Pan Am desk and booked two standby tickets to New York.

The plane was leaving at 1 pm so we had a couple of hours to kill. We went and had a meal then went back to Pan Am to check our luggage in. 

Well this was the last straw. We were politely informed that we couldn’t get the Pan Am flight, instead we would be going on, do I have to tell you, Air India. We couldn’t believe it. 

I was literally fed up.  I just hope my flight home will be a little less eventful.

The flight from London to New York was 7 1/2 hours.  Thankfully there weren’t any stopovers. The only complaint I have with this leg of our journey is that the plane was packed with Indians with screaming kids.

Note from Greg in 2023: This sort of language really grates with me, and I know it did with Trenna when she re-read this diary this century.  I considered censoring it out but decided not to as that is the sort of thing that most people with Trenna’s (and my) background might have said in that era.

We arrived in New York 3:30 pm New York time. Hurrah!

En Route/Returning

8/4/82

We left Honolulu at 2pm.  Our flight to Sydney was very uneventful and quick, quite the reverse to our trip going to the USA. We slept most of the flight.

We arrived at Sydney at 7:45 am Friday morning where we changed planes to Melbourne. We left two hours later. 

We arrived in Melbourne at about 11 am.  It was a very sunny day which was a pleasant surprise. We stayed the night with some friends of Toni’s. 

I rang Nancy to tell her the flight had been changed. She told me Colin had gone back to Holland, which upset me.

Note from Greg in 2023: My understanding of why Trenna was upset by this news is that she had left Colin living in and looking after her duplex in Girrawheen (an outer suburb of Perth) and he was also looking after her dog, Prickles. (Colin did ask Trenna’s next door neighbour to keep an eye on the place, and to feed Prickles.)

I slept like a log as I was suffering from jetlag already. Our flight to Perth left Melbourne on Saturday at 2:45 pm. Toni had been given some presents to take to her parents but she had to leave them behind as she had too much luggage. 

We got through Customs alright when we arrived in Melbourne. I hope we aren’t given a hard time in Perth.

[GM:  The Diary has a section near the start which is headed “Side Trips”.  Here is what she wrote.]

Side Trips

Saturday 12/12/81 

From Sarnia we crossed the border to Detroit for about four hours to see an ice hockey match between Detroit and Buffalo. Mark’s older brother John plays for Buffalo. They won 4 – 2.

Tuesday 6/4/82 continued

The Centre was divided into the seven villages of Polynesia. First of all we watched a show on the water which consisted of representatives of each village floating by on a canoe doing hula dances and war dances. 

It was a very pretty sight.  After the show we walked through all the villages, then went and had a very tasty Hawaiian dinner.

After dinner we watched the night show which was just superb. It took us about an hour to drive back to Waikiki.

Wednesday 7/4/82

It wasn’t the best weather for Honolulu, it was humid but very overcast. We had breakfast then went to the bank to cash our Aussie money as we had run out of American. 

We walked around and then after buying a few knick-knacks we decided to walk down to the beach.

We went back to the hotel and got our bathers on. Waikiki beach isn’t that crash. 

It’s long but very short in width.  Everyone practically was on top of one another. We stayed for a while and took some photos, then did a bit more shopping. 

Dinner we had to count our pennies. We could just afford a McDonald’s burger. We have just enough to pay for a cab fare to the airport. We gave our last two dollars to a porter and left the USA.

Note from Greg in 2023: When Trenna says they gave their “last $2 to a porter” my understanding is that it was literally their LAST $2. They returned to Perth with no money at all.

[GM:  There was also a section for “Incidents”.]

Incidents

New York. 25/10/81

Lost contact lens in the lift on the 80th floor of Empire State building. Luckily Toni has good eyesight. She found it.

New York 29/10/81 

Somewhere between going to the World Trade Centre and returning on the subway my gold charm bracelet disappeared.

New York 20/11/81 Friday 12:30 am 

I was propositioned by some nut in a cafe at the Greyhound station

New York 28/11/81

While in Bart’s car this black guy came up and washed our windows. He wasn’t impressed when Bart wouldn’t pay him.

Orlando 2/1/82

We got picked up by a security guard at Disney World entrance. He thought we were hitchhiking. Luckily we weren’t. We would’ve been fined.

Pasadena 14/3/82

I sprained my wrist while having a cushion fight with Stan.

[GM: And finally the actual Diary section.…that starts in Part 3.]

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