Leaving On A Jet Plane

Leaving On A Jet Plane

One thing I have learned today; travelling is best if you are the sort of person who finds the funny in life.

A long haul red eye flight is stressful, for sure! But the funny moments made it more than bearable. From racing Chad in a stairs vs escalator race (which you're never too old for, and stairs rightfully always wins!) to my dad ordering his coffee under the name 'Bert' with a completely straight face (made me love him just a little more that moment), to the moment when I yelled "Oh you know what I forgot...?!?" right as the plane lifted off into the sky (oh you should have seen his face!!!)

We arrived at the airport wth plenty of time. Our first flight (to Auckland) ended up running half an hour late but Chad and I were feeling so 'Wow!' about everything that time passed so fast. Chad was stressing a bit about getting to our connecting flight to LA in time but we needn't have worried; once we got to Auckland we heard our flight was running 40 mins late.

("See Chad- the board is telling us to RELAX! Lets go find the Duty Free!)

The room we went to when it was time to head to the gate was pretty full and more people kept coming in. The atmosphere in the room was tense as time ticked on. The truck that sucks the poop outta the plan had gotten stuck so it took ages to pry it off then they had to check the plane wasn't damaged. In the end we were about 1 1/2 hours late in leaving so people were getting quite stressed. Not Chad and I though- sure, being stuck in a stuffy room with a few hundred tired tourists isn't a breeze but I must say it's a hella lot more relaxing than the evening run at our house with Lil Miss Attitude and Little Miss Princess! Parenting those two has taught us great patience...

When we were finally on the plane we got a great surprise: bonus of being in one of the very back rows was having two seats to ourself. Yay no climbing over people for loo stops :-)

4 hours into the flight, I was on cloud 9. We had had a nice meal, free wine (they literally walk down the aisle waving wine bottles at you!), watching a new release movie...ah this is the life! Chad laughed at my excitement but seriously, that's the nicest evening we've had together in ages.

After enough medications to put a horse to sleep, I got about 4 hours sleep, Chad about 3, and it was light when we woke up.
Weird!
They kept the lights dimmed for another hour or so then turned them all on. By now we had been on the place about 10 hours and you know what? It wasn't bad at all really! Sore legs was the worst thing.

 We flew Air New Zealand (Love them!) and it was so great; two free meals, free snacks and drinks whenever we needed, very tidy plane, the most leg room I've had ever, a pillow and blanket and your own lil movie/TV/game thing. I am a total fan :-)

The piolet was very proud of himself for having shaved an hour off our trip. Despite the late start, he got us to the Airport on time literally to the exact minute!

Shattered, very glad to have landed!

Me, literally squishing my face against the glass to see my first sight of LA from the air

Los Angeles!!!

It was a long wait in immigration, again, patience came in very handy- Chad and I were more than happy to sit there chatting, just waiting for our turn. The culture shock started here:

For starters, I didn't even realise the person on the intercom was speaking english. It took about 10 minutes for me to realise it was indeed english, just with a heavy american accent. Feeling glad right now for my mad lip reading skills.

The staff were so rude that we were shocked; one young guy asked an airport lady if there was another way he could get through as he was worried about making his connecting flight in another 40 minutes and it looked like we wouldn't be through by then. She said "We-all I've been heare faaave hours", turned her back and walked off!

Then there were all the different cultures...the first lady of African American descent I met, I couldn't believe how amazing she looked- her skin was so dark and so clear and so beautiful! All the signs are in English AND Spanish, as are the things said over the intercom in the airport, on the shuttles, at some attractions etc. Would be so cool if NZ did this with Te Reo, we'd have no problem with the language dying then.

And the cops carry guns...like right there on the side of thier pocket. The only guns I've ever seen before have been for hunting. This lady's snappy little thing would have fitted in my hand; all loaded and ready to go. I totally wanted to ask to see it but probably not the best time...

Anyway we were lucky last through immigration.
Scary!
They asked a lot of questions and it felt like an interregation lol, good to see they do a good job though. We were super worried about hitting some problems at customs because we realised ON the plane that my doc hadn't signed the letter she had given us for my (ridiculously large) bad of meds...eek so in theory we could have written it ourselves. To our surprise after a gorgeous little dog gave our bags a sniff (soooo cute! Chad almost had to restrain me from patting him, as did most of the parents with kids in the line lol), and they went through an xray, we were waved through...and then we were out.

Wow.

Los Angeles.

We made it.

We really made it!!!