Fun story though, I landed in LA at the very same time I left my flat in Wellington: 2:30pm. Does that mean I was in two places at once? Or was it just instant time travel? It didn't really feel that instant lol
The flight was pretty low key though. I am so used to traveling in the US and needing to get to the terminal way before my flight I left a little early. My flight was at 5:30 so I booked a airport shuttle for 2:30 thinking that the shuttle would pick up other people on the way and I would need a little extra time. WELL I was the only one in the shuttle and there was NO traffic in the city, so I was at the airport a little before 3. I was checking in for an international flight and had two extra bags, so I thought I would need the extra time. The Air New Zealand lady was very nice and checked my bags all the way through to Boston so I wouldn't have to deal with them in Auckland. But it turns out that NZ doesn't really worry too much about terrorist attacks and security never takes very long, so I just waited around the airport for about 2 hours. Not too bad though, I did write that last blog post and did some reading. Since I was only flying up to Auckland the first leg of my journey was considered domestic; in which case you do not need to take out your liquid containers, which the security lady condacendly told me that I don't need t take out my liquids for a domestic flight (how was I supposed to know???). The short hop up to Auckland was not bad at all-- only an hour up and down not too tough on the ears and no screaming babies. I landed at 6:30 and had another 3 hours to kill in the airport. So I called the flat one last time to use up the credit I had left on my cell. Then at 7:30 the All Blacks vs. France Rugby game started up and I watched that until I was called for boarding. As the plane was boarding, the flight attendants were giving us updates on the All Blacks game, which I thought was funny...the All Blacks did end up winning (very exciting!!) and the whole plane clapped lol. We took off on time and all in all the flight was not bad. It was 12 hours flat, and I was able to get heaps of sleep, which was nice. I watched two movies and read some of my book. The only down side was that my feet swelled up to be about 4 times their normal size. Of course I didn't notice it as it was happening, though I did notice that my feet were feeling hotter than normal. As I stood up they felt kinda tight, but I didn't think too much of it. I was wearing pants so I didn't see the swelling until I lifted up my pants at one point and saw my huge cankles that had developed. I'm working at keeping them elevated and they are pretty much gone, hopefully the last leg of the trip doesn't affect them any.
Once in LAX life wasn't took exciting. Though it did take me forever to get through customs and then get my boarding pass. My bags of course were the last off the plane, so I was waiting around forever stressing that my bags didn't make it all the way and were stuck in Auckland. I had checked 2 extra bags, a duffel and a brown box with all my books in it. I waited at the carousel until all the bags were taken off it and it stopped...my box never came off the plane!! So I found someone who looked official and asked what I should do and he asked if it was a brown box. I said why yes, do you know where it is? and he pointed to a random space on the floor on the opposite side of the carousel from where I was and said that boxes NEVER go on the carousel! (again how was I supposed to know!?) well then I got through customs in about 2 minutes..I at least thought they were going to xray my bags or something, but no I just walked up to the man handed him my piece of paper he stamped it and said go on through. SO really I was just a worker for the airlines moving my bags....why couldn't they have done that?? They were marked all the way to Boston!?!?!?! I would have understood if they wanted to xray them to come into the country like they do in NZ but no...so really POINTLESS
So then I found my way to the United airlines (sadly the international terminal has NO directory of the airport, so I had NO idea where to go. But thankfully I discovered the inter-terminal bus and the nice bus driver took me to where I needed to go. Here began my two hour endeavor to get my boarding pass (it was probably only an hour...but it felt like two!!) I first walked in looking for a human because I didn't believe my itnerary information had the right stuff to do an e-check in because I didn't do an online check in since I was in the air. I managed to find the area with the humans and tried to walk into line to talk to one of them....my first mistake. The human guarding the entrance to the que told me that I WOULD be able to check in at the kiosks becuase I had printed out information (but he wouldn't look at what I had printed, he just told me to go there). So I stood in line for a kiosk for about 45 minutes got up to the kiosk where it balked at my refrence number (like I thought it would). So back I go to the que guarder....where he asked why I was back again and I said that it didn't like my info. He then directed me to the ticketing counter where I waited in another 45 minute line. Once I got up to the woman, she proceeded to tell me that I was at the wrong counter. Now being very frustrated I told her my story and she had said she had noticed me wandering and that she wanted to be able to help me but that the system at the computer she was sitting at only did ticketing, she couldn't check anyone in (which again made no sense to me...) but she did walked me back up to the talking head and yelled at him for being so annoying to me and pointed me to the correct line where I had to wait for another 45 minutes!! I was however in the right place (third times the charm) and got my boarding pass. Then I hung out in Bradley for a while where I got some food and washed up in the bathroom and chilled on the internet. Then it was over to security at 8 and now I'm writing this post waiting in the terminal.
So for now I am just chilling in the terminal...I'm pretty much done with traveling, I just want to be home!
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