Jan 25-27

The Long Way There...

On Thursday, January 25, the cell phone alarm went off at 6:30 and the other was set for 7. During the 30 minute interim, I did not sleep. I just laid awake thinking of all the things that we still had to do. Up at 7 and we loaded the last of the things into the car. Rather than having both of us go to the storage unit, Josh went and I finished vaccuming the house. He returned and we took a shower, ate cold pizza for breakfast, finished packing up the suitcases, and loaded the last of our gear into the car. We had a goal to be on the road to the airport by 11 am.

A few minutes past 9, we were turning in our keys to the Cliffs Apartment managers and asking why they'd been charging us $630 in rent rather than $605. However, the day you move to another country is not the time to be taking care of these sorts of things.

Keys turned in, we were on our way to the university. A stop at the WAXX building to try to print off the corrected pages of Josh's dissertation (Josh had 2 sheets of "good" paper but more than 2 pages needed re-printed) was unsuccessful.

There was no printer connected to the computer anyway. Oh well we said, the Graduate School editors would probably have other edits to make and my mom could run the whole of the dissertation off after Josh emailed her any changes because he left her with the high quality paper and the signature pages of his dissertation.


With re-printing the pages being a wash, we went to turn in the dissertation to the Grad School. Josh was fairly quick about dropping it off while I sat illegally parked behind a car parked in a handicapped space in the KUAF parking lot. Once Josh made it back, we were off to the bank to get some cash for my mom to pay any remaining bills and to also give her some thank you money for everything she did to help us during the move.

While at the bank, I got a print off of the money we had in checking so that I could confirm with New Zealand immigration that I had enough funds to support my year here as specified by the working holiday visa. Apparently, you can get a certified document that shows how much funds you have but that takes 5 days to arrive and seemed a bit unneccessary. (As it turns out, Immigration did not ask for any proof of funding upon our arrival).

Banking done, we returned the parking sticker to the Parking Department and they said we should expect around $58 or so. Well, I'll be surprised to see the money post back to the credit card seeing as the Parking Department is so inefficient on campus. After that, Josh turned in his keys to the Facilities Management Department and then we were off to my mom's house.

Mom had picked up Linda and Tim's truck earlier in the morning so that we'd have room for our luggage and ourselves in the vehicle. As it was, we were still pretty squashed. We got all the gear in the truck and managed to find the Seville corkscrew and give it to mom and pick up some extra batteries for the camara and MP3 player before heading out.

Driving to the airport, I said my last good bye to the Holiday Inn in Springdale where Josh interviewed for the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship. The thought that we were really going to do this and go through with the move hit me earlier than expected. Prior to moving day, I thought the idea that I was moving across the world would hit me on the big plane from LA to Auckland...well, it hit me more as we drove down the airport lane decorated with banners named after local towns. Wow, I'm really doing this. It's really happening. It's finally here.

Rather than mom just dropping us off at the terminal, as is usually the case when she takes us to the airport for a trip, we parked in short term parking and everyone loaded up with suitcases and bags. Josh commented on the design of the airport and how it looks like a hospital. They are building on a new wing and I like the modern design and don't really see the hospital look at all.

Inside the airport, there was no wait at the American desk. Note to self and other travelers: LABEL YOUR LUGGAGE INSIDE AND OUT BEFORE YOU GET TO THE AIRPORT....AND LABEL EVERY BAG INCLUDING CARRY ONS! Labeling carry ons will become obvious in the story below. It took forever to label the checked bags all the while trying to work the system to get better seats. We tried to get emergency exit row seats on the Qantas flight (did not recline), however, the system would not allow it. In the end, we were told to try to change them in LA.

The 50 pounds per bag that American told me about was also false as I really could take 70 pounds per bag as Qantas allows that. Good thing I decided to overload one bag to about 63 pounds thinking I'd pay the over weight penalty because in the end we didn't have to pay for that bag. I'm still going to have to have my mom mail me several sweaters and the sixth Harry Potter book!We said our long good bye at the airport and took several pictures. Mom walked us up to security and we did not cry. As we were going through, I looked back at my mom until she was too far down on the escalator to see. Through security without getting selected for a special screening was a plus and we were into the terminal with about an hour before departure. Josh made a couple of phone calls and I called my dad and left my mom a message on her home phone.

The American Airlines flight was fine. Josh and I sat together for take off, however, the flight was fairly empty, so I moved up and over one row to have two seats to myself. I watched the snowy sceanery below and once I turned back to look at Josh to tell him to look at the snow covered mountain peaks that were coming up, but his head was back on the headrest, his nose was up in the air and his eyes were closed. I tried to get some sleep and managed to doze and maybe get a solid 15 minutes in at one point.

Sleeping would have been easier had a group of four 35+ year old women traveling together to a plastic surgeons convention in San Diego not been drinking and whooping and hollering the entire flight. Even worse was hearing them try to hook up with two local guys on the flight who were going to take them to a club somewhere that they could ride a mechanical bull...give me a break! Annoying!

The flight was mostly smooth and the scenary the entire flight was nice. Watching the landscape turn from snowy plains, to the red mountains and land of Utah, to the tan desert of California, to the brown hills with millions of houses with swimming pools in LA (even making out the Hollywood sign in the distance) was neat. Touchdown at LAX found us in the remote terminal. We let everyone off before us and Josh and I were careful to make sure we had everything before getting off the plane. While doing this, a RUDE American Airlines gate agent came onboard and shouted from the front of the plane if we could hurry up because she had people to put on this plane. Without giving her eye contact, I said we were trying. UGH! The thought of that woman still makes me mad.

Off the plane, we caught the bus to the next terminal, however, it was not the terminal our flight was leaving from. We were hungry so we stopped in at the same Chili's we'd eaten at on our way to Australia in 2004.Josh decided not to use his Admiral's Club coupon to sit in the relaxing lounge area that America Airlines had sent him (if you ask me, that was a waste). We had to exit this terminal to get to the Tom Brady International Terminal. It was a great California night...cool breeze, warm sunset. We made it to the terminal after a short walk outside. Inside, we had to decide if we should stand in line at the Qantas check in counter to see about changing our seats or just go on through security and try to change the seats with the gate agent. We opted for the latter.

There was no line for going through security, however, the removal of shoes and laptop from its case is always a hassel. Again, no special screening required, we found our gate which was predominately empty...for awhile. The gate area quickly filled up and beyond the seats that were available...and still no gate agent appeared. It looked like we would not be changing our seats.

Josh bought us a Crunch bar ice cream and a diet coke. We called home and Josh said his mom cried on the phone.Finally, a gate agent appeared and I, along with another guy, pounced on her. But, the plane was full (oversold I heard) and she wasn't reassigning seats. Once it was time to board, and the boarding rows were announce, everyone lined up and you know that people go out of order. So, when it got down to a handful of people, we boarded although our number wasn't called. We got called aside to measure our carry on bag and it passed the size inspection, however, I wasn't pleased about the hassel. On board, the man sitting in the aisle seat of our row (40) was already there so clearly he had boarded out of order too!

Josh had the window and I had the middle in a row that was over the wing of the plane. We had the bathroom 2 rows behind us or 10 rows ahead of us...which would be great if I'd be able to leave my middle seat during the flight and not be trapped. Well, my aisle seat mate was quite the talker (though not quite as much the talker as the guy seated one row up in the aisle was...he drank the free booze to excess and was removed by the flight attendents from his seat).

My seat mate was a tour guide to Australia, New Zealand and so on for the last 20 years. He said he made this trip every three weeks or so. Since he was such a talker, I thought I'd tell him I'd probably need to get up a lot and he said that he'd be up a lot himself...I was thinking, yeah right, no one needs to get up and pee as much as me...but this guy kept the same schedule as me and it actually worked out much better than the last time I had a middle seat on the return flight from Auckland to LA. This time, Josh didn'tget up once in the 12.5 hour flight!!!

Qantas had good service in 2004 to Australia but it was verydisappointing this time. I caught a little sleep but nothing like an hour solid...just off and on sleep. We were seated over the wing where turbulence is less obvious. We did have some bumps along the way but I've certainly felt worse even going to Paris last September. I kept telling myself that this is the least turbulence I would feel anywhere on the plane. I kept saying, I'm on the wing, the strongest part, etc. No out of your seat turbulence and the pilot kept the seat belt sign OFF most of the flight which is what I always like to see.