Departure day

Well, I am in the Charlotte, NC terminal awaiting my flight to California. After a layover in San Francisco, I will be in Auckland, NZ, where I will take a bus to my university, about 100 km away (60 mi for us). So, let's get the record straight:

I will leave NC 9:35 EST
I will arrive in NZ at 11:00 EST TOMORROW.

Considering that I awoke at 5 am with 6 hours of sleep, and Won't even get in until 11 am the next day, that means I will be awake for 30 hours when the plane touches down. take into account that i will arrive at 5am there, and then you see the dilemma- once it is time to go to bed at a decent time, I will have been awake for 40 hours. So, I guess I should learn to sleep on the plane...

Plane will be boarding soon. Until later.

P.S. I AM GOING TO NEW ZEALAND! AHH!



p.p.s. I will post the cousin pictures in the next few days.

PART 2:
Alright, so I have survived my flight to San Francisco. I have a piece of advice: If you are going to fly US air, please pack food and drink before you leave- it was $2 a drink (including water) and $5 a snack on board! Beer and sandwiches were $7 each! Beware!

On the bright side, I had a very nice woman sit next to me, who reminded me of my great aunt Barbara (in looks and in mannerisms). We talked for a good long while on the 6 hour flight, from where we were from to what I was going to school for. It was a very enjoyable flight for only 2 reasons: First, this woman. Second, I got a window seat with a spectacular view. Imagine this: Rolling green hills past the Appalachian mountains, followed by over a thousand miles of purely flat grid- the entire Midwest was covered in identical (I assume 1 mile square) grids for planting crops. I seriously can appreciate how our country is fed now. After this, the plane flew over the majestic Rockies, which I literally stared at for hours. Due to the rain shadow effect, the area near the mountains was nothing but dry, seemingly barren land- scrub plain interspersed with craggy, snow covered peaks dotted with pine trees. Once the last mountain range was passed, however, the difference was like night and day.

For those of you not familiar, let me briefly explain the rain shadow effect. In this case, moist warm air is blown in from the Pacific towards the Rockies (west to east). When it hits the first high mountain range, that air must rise to go over the mountain. As it rises, it cools and expands (adiabatic cooling). This causes clouds to form, and heavy rains on the windward side of the mountain. The leeward side (which is the eastern barren side) gets very little precipitation because all the moisture coming from the west is blocked. Thus, there is the strikingly different environment on each side.

After those mountains came the verdant fertile hills of California. I don’t think I have ever seen so much green before. Words could probably describe the beauty pretty well, but I am not going to ruin it, just in case I mess up.

I am currently in the San Francisco airport, and boy is it totally different than Charlotte (or any other airport I’ve been to, for that matter). The people are nice, helpful, and joking around (even the people at security). I got in and went straight to the terminal for internationals, only to find I had 3 hours to wait until the ticketing opened. I wandered, and found an library/museum of flight. I went in, and was amazed to see this stone and wood magnificent chasm opening up as if I were the long passenger on a modern day titanic. In laymen’s terms, it was pretty swanky. I would have taken pictures, but my new lens is not good for indoor shots (not a wide enough angle) and my old lens is packed away. Alas, it was awesome. A totally quiet are to study, reflect, and write some. They even had a climate controlled room that housed the books and journals from the days of balloon flight- the 17th century! I wanted to go in and look at them, but I had not enough time to make an appointment.

After this I decided it was time for some food. There were a multitude of choices, and sorry Jessica, but I couldn’t find an in-and-out, even though I looked everywhere. I had a Chinese dish- duck noodle soup. It actually was pretty bad. I managed to eat it all (minus the random duck bones) and went to make a phone call, to find the payphone dead. Once that was sorted out, I checked in. I found out that AIR NZ apparently does a wonderful job for their fliers, and we shall see- it appears to me already from the service I have received that this will be a magnificent flight. I will check back in later.

P.S. Not all of my posts will be this long, so don’t fret- it is only because of a 6 hour layover that I am writing about every mundane detail about my day.