traveldiary.stracke.us

After only 5 hours of sleep the rude alarm woke us yesterday at 4:30 AM. Lothar, as usual booked the earliest flight possible, so not to get caught into the quagmire of delayed flights, that could occur over the course of a day. Actually on the news the other day, it said that only about 50% of flights in the US arrive on time; so maybe he’s right. The day before the flight,Sonja inquired
as to what time she would have to shuttle us to the Albany International Airport (Canada is still a foreign country and Mexico has not yet been fully annexed) . Lothar at first is always vague about an exact departure time comittment, but we do notice that as the pre-flight day commences, the time seems to get earlier and earlier, usually in 15 min increments. I don’t think he likes to hit us with the reality until the last possible moment. He has become better in that I now know my real departure time, the evening before, instead of the day of. the flight. Each time, there is a reason why we should arrive early. This time…….school vacation started yesterday and there could be horrendous lines since many people go on vacation as soon as school is out. I don’t know about many people, but we sure seem to.
So we were out the door at 5:30AM, one of the first to check in for our 7 something flight. As we are going up the escalator to the security check, Lothar points out, that “the lines are getting longer”. I hate to admit it…..they were.

Our flight to Chicago was rather uneventful, except for the early departure of the flight out of Albany. Since we booked economy plus we had received a #1 boarding time, which we missed, since my hubby thought he had time for a bathroom stop along the way to the gate. So we were allowed on the plane with group # 2, everyone else. Hey perks aren’t so much fun, are they?
At Chicago O’Hare, winter must have set in. The terminal was freezing. I was wearing “all” the layers I had buried in my carry-on. OK, going to the South Pacific, I didn’t overdo it. I wasn’t packing for Greenland in the summer. After the 2 hour hour virtual excursion to the northern lands, we were on our way to LA.
Sunny, warm LA, right? Wrong. Upper 60′s, low 70′s with a brisk wind. We were only staying overnight here because we were afraid we wouldn’t get the connection to Samoa, if there were some kind of air traffic delays. The on time record is not glowing.
We checked into a nice Marriott Hotel near the airport, where they gave us a lovely top floor room with a great view of incoming flights and Greater LA in the smoggy background. The windows were really sound-proof. We took a 5 hour nap and then let the vacation begin with a nice light dinner of spicy asparagus shrimp (a recipe I will have to try), a French Onion soup, and a luscious
New Zealand wine from the Marlborough Sound area. Now this is a good start to a 30th wedding celebration.
We had a great night’s sleep on a wondrous pillow topped bed (notice my longing for a good bed, I remember some of the awful ones from our trip around the world…..I am already scared for the next 6 weeks). Around the world, they don’t seem to have the same idea as I do, of what makes a good bed. The day waiting for our evening departure to New Zealand, was spent leisurely with a good movie Namesake, about the clashing of 2 cultures, an exhilarating swim, some auditory French lessons, and some Lonely Planet reading about Samoa. Who had time for any of this the last months before the trip. Ah, that is why we have summer vacation.
We boarded our Economy Plus, one step under Business Class, flight and were greeted with Champagne. Just the thing to put me to sleep. I curled up with my blankie, blow-up pillow and eye shades and was in dream land. About 7 hours later it was time for a movie, Painted Veil, a great movie about 1920′s China. Then we were dined with an exquisite breakfast. I know that isn’t normally the adjective to refer to airline food, but it really was good. New Zealand Airlines do a great job, the personnel is very friendly and helpful, the food is palatable and seats very relatively comfortable. Did I mention the flight was over 12 hours long, but they went by quickly.
Our next flight is this afternoon to Samoa. We are now in the lounge gorging ourselves with free food. The last time we were in an airline lounge was with US Airlines, where I received crackers and packaged cheese. How can this airline do it? However it is, please let some of our American airlines know.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 25th, 2007 at 9:08 pm and is filed under New Zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.