The Journey Here

You do not have to have extensive international travel experience to imagine what my journey to Down Under was like. If I had to describe it in only one word, that word would be LONG. Between a 12 hour flight from San Francisco to Auckland, a 3 hour layover in Auckland, and a 3 hour flight from Auckland to Brisbane, I spent a total of 18 hours in transit. While I am no stranger to flying internationally, two aspects of my travel were strange to me. First, it was dark the entire duration of my flight from SF to NZ. Though my European flights have involved nighttime flying, I always left the US when it was still light. During the 5 hours of sleep I got on the plane, the light would shine through and I would wake up because I thought it was light outside. As soon as I looked out the window, I quickly noticed the sky was black and the light was from inside the plane. Second, I arrived in Auckland at 5:15 am and it was still dark. Until then, I had never waited in an almost empty airport very early in the morning.


Overall, my flights were pretty uneventful. I watched a few movies on my flight to Auckland and a few episodes of some of my favorite TV shows on my flight to Brisbane as well as played Sporcle trivia games on my iPhone. I watched Joyful Noise, We Bought a Zoo, and the first 15 minutes of Crazy, Stupid Love (which I unfortunately did not enjoy). Among those three movies, I liked We Bought a Zoo the best. I was also glad to catch up on a few episodes of Modern Family and Family Guy. My one major complaint about my long flight was that the flight crew on Air New Zealand would not let people sleep when they served meals. When the crew made the announcements that dinner and breakfast were being served, they told us we had to put our seats in the upright position. If people want to sleep during meals on a flight as long as this one, let them! I have slept through meals on my most recent flights to Europe and the crews on Lufthansa and United let people sleep. I don't know about you, but I want to eat when I want to, not when the airline crew says I have to. 5 hours is the most I have slept on a flight, and I was lucky to have an empty seat. Unfortunately, the armrest did not go all the way up so I could not stretch out as comfortably as I would have liked. However, my seats on the plane to Brisbane were quite comfy so maybe the aircraft of my previous flight was an older one.

After going through customs and getting my luggage, I was greeted by my host mom and her adorable 4 year old with flowers when I walked out of the airport. I will write another entry of my first 24 hours here, as a lot has happened. Jet lag has not been as bad as I would have expected, but I am tired so I think I am going to go to bed. Good night (or good morning/afternoon), lovely readers!