First of all an explanation for my dating scheme: We are starting our trip at 3:00pm on Sunday February 23rd in New Zealand and should be arriving in Denver at 6:30 pm on Sunday February 23rd. It would be VERY nice if it was only a three and one half hour trip but that is not the case. First we fly to Auckland, then from there to Los Angeles and then from there to Denver so there is quite a bit of traveling ahead of us. I’ll be updating this as we get to different legs of our journey.
We decided we wanted to do something on our last day and right next to our hotel was the International Antarctic Centre. It was a great place to spend three hours. They have a lot of different interactive activities to keep you busy. First we road in one of the vehicles they use to get around the Antarctic. They took us over an obstacle course which was simultaneously lame and fun. More fun than lame!
Inside the Centre was consistently fun. First of all there is a 4D movie where the seats rock (on cue with the movie) you have spray in your face (on cue with the movie) and more. Usually I have trouble with 3D movies because of my bad eye but for some reason I was able to see a number of the special effects which made it more fun. After that we experienced a simulation of an Antarctic storm and watched the penguins being fed. There was a lecture about Husky’s and an opportunity to pet one (gives you an idea of how starved I am for dog time that I took time out to do that). There were also a number of other interactive activities including seeing if I could keep my hand submerged in ice cold water for a minute (I made 45 seconds and might have stuck it out for the full minute if I wasn’t afraid of something bad happening before our flight. It was a delightful way to spend three hours.
Now we are waiting for the plane to arrive that will take us to Auckland. More later.
Back again, now in Auckland. First of all a reminder: I’ve admitted from the start that this whole blog (indeed the entire website) is a vanity project. So if you are somewhat offended that I am taking up your time by giving you blow by blow updates on my progress home I can honestly say that you have no one to blame but yourself. I’ve been straightforward about this whole process. Now that I got that out my system, on to the brief update (thankfully brief because not a heck of a lot has happened since “last we spoke”.
The flight was uneventful (which is the best thing one can ever say about a flight. We arrived in Auckland where they have a great way to get you from the Domestic Terminal to the International One: follow the green line. No, really. There is a literal green line on the pavement leading from the domestic terminal to the international one. It made it very easy to get to where we needed to go (and allowed us to go outside for a bit (which was lovely) and to stretch our legs (ditto). Not surprisingly when you go past security into the international terminal you are in the duty free shop. A question for my international traveling friends: was there a time when duty free was a great deal? I look at the prices of liquor, perfume and the like and never see any good deals. As for the price of chocolate, well, forget it. Anyway, once again there was nothing I needed which was great.
We finally found our way to the gate and are now waiting to board our flight to Los Angeles. Our friend, Howard, loaned us a book on how to better deal with jet lag. According to it, we are supposed to put on eye shades at 10:00 pm New Zealand time and try to sleep. However we are supposed to wake ourselves up (but more importantly get lights of light, preferably real sunlight) starting at 8:00 Los Angeles time. We’ll see how successful we can be at that. We, once again, have Skycouch meaning Robin should definitely get some sleep and maybe I will as well. I’ll certainly try.
Wish me an easy flight.
Monday the 24th
Often when one misses a deadline it is because something bad happened. I’m delighted to report that there were no further updates yesterday because something really good happened. I’ll get to that in a second. First the update on the flight from New Zealand to Los Angeles. In a word:
It’s a long trip, the SkyCouch doesn’t work for me, Air New Zealand doesn’t have the ability to connect to bluetooth earphones so I couldn’t use my Bose noice cancelling headphones with their entertainment system (can you believe that anal retentive ME didn’t think to bring the cord for my headphones with me, I mean, really!) and because we were in the SkyCouch section there is no leg room. It wasn’t a miserable trip but it sure as heck was an uncomfortable one. Thank goodness a library book I was really waiting for (and looking forward to) showed up just before we left New Zealand (the latest Louise Penny) so I had a great book to read and I had a good book to listen to (the Carl Hiassan books are wonderful to listen to, trust me). Those two made the trip bearable, but (pun intended) just barely.
We arrived at LA and had a LONG walk to immigration. I was very relieved that they did not have a picture of the current occupant of the White House (I will not use his name) greeting us as I’m afraid I may have said something honest about my feelings which could have effected my ability to reenter the country. Then we had a very long walk from the International terminal to the terminal where United is (our airline to get to Denver). Robin and I thought maybe, just maybe, we could get on an earlier flight which would be wonderful. A woman at the United counter said the next flight was totally full but she could put us on standby. Her comment was “you never know” and the only “bad” thing about trying to go standby was she had to book our checked bag on that flight which meant it would be at the United Baggage office waiting for us if we didn’t get on standby and ended up on our regular flight. It seemed like we had little to lose so we asked her to try.
We got to the gate while they were loading the earlier flight and the woman at the gate said it was unlikely we could get on the flight. “Oh well” we thought and sat down. About two minutes later both our phones buzzed telling us we had seats! This meant we would get home two hours earlier. Whoo hoo! Not only that but the seats were in EconomyPlus and were together! This mean we had extra leg room as well. That plane trip was enjoyable: more leg room, a nice snack, I watched the Christopher Reeve story (very good, I recommend it) as my headphones were able to connect on the United flight and our bag came out quickly. The person staying at our house was able to pick us up and the traffic home was light. We got home shortly after we would have been boarding our original flight!
We had dinner at Hoppa, watched some stupid TV and slept in our own bed. It is so good to be home.
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