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Published: April 14th 2011
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Well it's technically 3 p.m eastern on April 12 but here in Auckland, NZ it's 7 a.m on April 13th. Just finished my 14 hour flight from LAX and it wasn't so bad! I flew New Zealand Air and it is a wonderful airline. Their video at the start of the flight that tells you where the exits are and what to do in case of emergency was hilarious! They had a puppet who kept getting the wording wrong so the flight attendants in the video had to keep repeating themselves. Plus everyone was so happy in the video 😊 We were served dinner and breakfast and there was enough room on the flight that a lot of people could lay down across 3 seats. At the end of the flight the attendants went around handing out candy, just delightful. The air line also had a concierge on board and she would make announcements to speak to her if you wanted help in knowing how to catch your connecting flight if it was a tight connection, or if you wanted to some ideas of things to do in NZ. The in-flight programming was great as well you could choose to listen to
music, watch tv, watch a number of recent movies, or play a game all from the screen in front of you. I watched the new version of Gullivers Travels with Jack Black and Tron.
The airport itself is really nice and I didn't have to take off my shoes for security, and it wasn't nearly the hustle and stress of American security ( I don't know if thats a good thing or not, but personally it was nice). I am currently sitting in a chair that looks like it is straight out of the 60's, like a bubble. But it is sooooooo comfortable! I am just waiting for them to assign my flight to a gate.
Got on my connecting flight just fine and arrived on Australia! Yay! As we made our decent I had a wave of WHAT AM I DOING ?!? I am coming to live in a foreign country for 6 weeks with a family I haven't seen since I was 12?! But that soon gave way to excitement 😊 I then started to worry about customs as they had announced that if you weren't feeling well to tell customs, now this posed a bit
NZ Air Congrats William and Kate
They gave us these cups and I just had to take a picture of a problem since I had been blowing my nose about every 5 seconds since I got sick on Thursday. Luckily I only had a fever for a couple of days and had been feeling much better since, but my nose was still giving me away! I told myself that I had to get better instantly or I would be sent home. I think I did a good job since they let me in!! Yay! In customs I even met one of Simons old students that he took to Borneo back in 06.
I am waiting for the train to the domestic side of the airport and the hugest bug just ran beneath my feet! I did the classic giant inhale and sprung to my feet, the few other people waiting for the train must think I am crazy.
I had another 4 hours to chill before my flight, during that time I started and finished Half Broke Horses, and I highly recommend it! Once we were up in the air it would be less than two hours to my final destination, Townsville!
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Beth Diehl
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Professor Simon
That was cool that you met one of Simon's students. Did he work for customs or was he going through custom? Not sure how his course work with Simon coordinated a job with customs unless his specialty was checking for bugs. :-)