I'm on the ground and home again after 24+ hours of travelling. The trip home had a few more bumps than normal.
My flight from Wellington to Auckland was delayed by an hour due to fog in South Island delaying flights. (All of you who watched Saturday's Super 14 rugby final between the Christchurch Crusaders and the Wellington Hurricanes saw the horrible fog in Christchurch.) Anyway, this resulted in a tight connection in Auckland for my Auckland-LA leg. I literally ran the half mile between the domestic and international terminal, trying to find the blue and white line I was told to follow (it starts about halfway to the int'l terminal). Once I got to the international terminal, I had to pay the exit tax (why isn't this built into the airfare?) After two tries on the machine failed, I had to wait in line. I used my last New Zealand dollars to pay. Sweating, I made it to my flight and had a nice icy glass of orange juice to cool down.
Lest anyone worry that I didn't take care of business, I did manage to run through the Duty Free to buy a bottle of Arbeg 10yo single malt (a bottle I've been wanting to try for a while.) A man has to have his priorities straight after all...
I hate LAX. Just let me say that up front. The signage is terrible. The staff is terrible. The flow is terrible. The services are terrible. I don't ever want to fly through there again. The only thing half decent was the United Red Carpet Club. There were a lot of people there who couldn't work it out (staff and passengers.)
In any case, I did manage to sleep at the appropriate times, scratched my Lord of the Rings itch on the flight, and got a little work done. All that said, I'm glad to be home. More later.
Posted by Tony at May 29, 2006 12:45 AM | TrackBackGlad you got home safely. My plane got delayed out of Wellington to but I managed to get the shuttle between the air ports and my credit card worked (After 3 tries) in the air port tax machines. You flew east - I flew west to Perth.
Will you be able to make it over to Australia for Web Directions in September?
Posted by: Lloyd at May 29, 2006 01:04 AMThanks, Lloyd. I'm not sure if I'll be attending Web Directions yet. We'll see. I'd love to come that way again...
Posted by: Tony at May 29, 2006 01:46 AMI commiserate about the Auckland Airport domestic-international terminals run. I've had a couple of close calls myself at Auckland Airport (I'm a kiwi from Wgtn). Plus if you wait for the inter-terminal bus, it's invariably running late. Oy.
Posted by: Richard MacManus at May 29, 2006 02:48 AMWelcome home! I too arrived late last night, luckily not through LAX. Looking forward to seeing you soon...
-Chrix
Posted by: Chrix at May 29, 2006 02:11 PMWelcome home Tony. Aren't you glad you've been exercising more lately? Must have made that airport run a lot easier...
Posted by: Kymberlee at May 30, 2006 08:40 PMYes, Kymberlee, I actually thought that while I was running. I was also glad I shoved my huge Acer demo laptop into my checked luggage so I didn't have to carry two bags for the run.
Posted by: Tony at May 31, 2006 06:25 AM