Boarding the plane :)

P.S. Just an update...I have landed in Christchurch New Zealand and I'm done traveling...well at least for now. Believe it or not, the easiest part of my 28 hour trip was the 14 hr flight. Sat next to an engineer who is returning to "the ice" for his 10th season. Along with being extremely nice, he proved to be very informative as well, which was a huge help (and a relief) for a newbee like myself. After a lengthy conversation with him I actually was fortunate enough to sleep for... drum roll please... 9 HOURS!! That made the long flight very easy.

On the down side th HARDEST part of the journey was actually the first leg. We did not get off to a very good start... to my left was a gentleman who could not sit still to save his life... to my right was a young man who from the looks of it had never been on a plane before. He proceeded from the moment we got on the plane to take pictures of EVERYTHING!! For all of you photographers out there, I'm sure you realize that to have any kind of a picture turn out in such a dark confined space you need to use a flash...well that was apparently the one part of photography that he had mastered...

FLASH, FLASH, FLASH...

When my eyes were closed I felt like i was in a dance club with a mosh pit to my left and strobe lights raging to my right... All I kept telling myself as we were rolling down the tarmac was "its only a 2 hr flight - find your happy place - its only a 2 hr flight". As I began to chant these words in my head, my rythm was broken by the PA system...

"Good afternoon folks, this is the captain speaking, it appears that there is some bad weather en rout to Los Angeles, so at this time they have grounded all flights."

(So I'm thinking, "ok, I guess will have to wait in the terminal for awhile before we can board the plane again." NOT)

" We will remain here until we are cleared for takeoff...um, hopefully it will only be about 20mins."

Smile...all I could do was smile :) Needless to say, I survived, and the rest of the trip was as easy as could be expected. I am now in Chrictchurch and its lovely, wonderful, phenomenal...