Travel Haze

Well, it’s June 26 (again) and I am currently sitting in LAX waiting for my final flight home.  Some of you may not know, but there is a Chilean volcano in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano chain that has created an ash cloud over the Pacific.  This volcano began erupting over a week ago.  Since it was unsure what this ash could do to airplanes, most flights in Australia and New Zealand were cancelled, particularly international ones.  However, the cloud passed by and everything shortly returned to normal.  Not for long, however, as the volcano continued to erupt and spew more ash into the atmosphere.  

For my trip home I was scheduled to fly Air New Zealand from Palmy to Auckland on the morning of June 25.  That went without a hitch.  The next leg of the journey, Auckland to LA, was through Qantas.  Well, Qantas decided that they weren’t flying on the 25 due to the ash cloud.  Everyone else was flying, so what’s up, Qantas?!   Anyways, Kristen, my travel partner, and I were not able to depart New Zealand on the 25^th.  Let’s just say that we were more upset at having to leave Palmy and being stuck in Auckland than being stuck in the country.  We happened to have a very emotional departure from Palmy and we just wanted to finish our journey.  But no.  At least Qantas was kind enough to offer complimentary accommodation and meals while we were stuck in Auckland.  

We were extremely lucky in that we were re-booked within two hours for a next day flight to LA via Papeete, Tahiti.  We had brief discussions with people who had been dealing with Qantas for over a week, trying to depart NZ.  Our new schedule was to leave the country around 2pm on the 26^th, arrive in Tahiti around 9pm on the 26^th (international date line and all) leave again around 11pm on the 25^th, and finally arrive in the U.S. around 11am on the 26^th.  Luckily we made it, even with dear Kristen, the problem child of our trip.  So we arrived in LA this morning after two days of travel and disruption.  We were quite surprised at the speed at which we were able to make it through customs which involved two security points and luggage retrieval.  I would say it only took about 30 mins.  Awesome!  We then meandered our way out of the international terminal and over to terminal 4 for our domestic flights home.

Happy Birthday to Me?

As many of you know, I only had about a four hour birthday this year since I literally flew right through it.  Well here is that story...

February 3-4-5, 2011

The Boston and Dallas flights both ran very smoothly.  Once we reached LAX there were about eight of us with the program who found each other in transit.  We meandered from one terminal to the next, only to discover that the line at the next check-in desk was crazy.  We also discovered that the new airline only allowed for one free checked bag, where we were all told two.  So after a good two hours of waiting in multiple lines, and $115 later, I was heading through security (TEAN was awesome in helping us get a reimbursement for this).  Security only took about 20 minutes to get through.  It was probably the fastest part of the whole trip.

Once on the plane I sat in my seat, 64E if I remember properly.  It was in the middle row, a row which was totally empty.  So I sat waiting for the rest of the group of eight to show up, wondering who would sit beside me.  I didn't have to wait too long.  The rest of our group of eight showed up, and Travis, a fellow Palmy student, sat next to me.  Soon after that a girl sat on my other side.  Come to find out her name is Kristen and she's going to Palmy too.  So now all of us wanted to know who was sitting on the other side of Travis since there are only four students going to Palmerston North this semester with this program. 

Not too much time later and Kaleb, our fourth, showed up.  So yes, all four Palmy students were seated next to each other for the international flight to Fiji.  It was crazy.  It was also the beginning of the end for us.  It was a great friendship from the start (that's what I think anyways).  To steal a quote from Kaleb's blog: "California to Fiji was a quite lengthy flight, but I was able to meet the 3 amigos joining me from the States in Massey University at Palmerston North.  They are: [Kaleb from Minnesota], Kristen from Kentucky, and Travis from Texas (Too bad [Kaleb] wasn't [Melvin] or something for yet another alliteration)."

So in introducing ourselves to each other, I 'let slip' that my birthday was in two hours and asked if they minded staying up.  They agreed to stay up and sing before falling asleep.  It wasn't  hard either since we were served dinner about 30 minutes or so after takeoff.

Appetizing, I know. So we were slowly approaching my twentieth birthday.  At 11:56pm, four minutes to the big day, the time changed.  10:56pm.  WTF.  But we were all tired and wanted to go to bed so they sang to me at 11:00, which just four minutes earlier would have been midnight.  And then we passed out.

I slept for most of the plane ride, though I did keep waking up due to some pretty extreme turbulence.   But we made it to Fiji without any major issues.  And what a place.  It was around five in the morning when we landed yet there was no need for a jacket or even pants.  The place is amazing.  More on that to come...