Land of the Kiwis A runner in New Zealand

Day 1: A Sleepwalker’s Tale

The day leading up to departure was interesting. A little nostalgic. A little exciting. A lotta turkey... My brothers and I stayed up all night doing the strangest assortment of activities. this included:

Tired Brothers

• Playing various games.
• Talking about god and religion (first even semi-interesting conversation I've had on that topic in 4 years... Well maybe that's unfair, but first time I felt like I got a new perspective on things, felt my paradigm shift a little)
• Watching far too many "Sounds" clips from Who's Line Is It Anyways.
• Around 5AM I finally boxed up my desktop and monitor for the trip. Then packed away my clothes and whatnot around that gear. It actually made for a fairly good padding situation.

Anyways, grabbed some coffee cake, hugged the parents, and jumped in the Rav4. Slept 30min with my mouth wide open and head tilted back on the way to the airport. Weighed my bags and got shocked with the revalation of the expense of bringing your life with you on a trip. I get 2 50 lb bags and a carry-on. I suppose most can do with 120lbs but I had a desktop computer and monitor and speakers. Fortunately, I could even everything out to 47.5 49.5 and 50.0 lb bags. Woo! So I only had to pay $200 for a third bag. Could have been a lot worse... I'm also officially taking 162lbs of gear with me on my trip, exactly my body weight. Coincidence?... Yeah.

Hopped on the flight and slept soundly for the hour to Chicago. Then on to LA with a good 2 episodes of House (I'm giving it a chance, and 6 episodes in on the trans-pacific flight while I'm typing this, I gotta say... I really really like the theme music). I Also slept 2 hours on the flight to LA and had an aisle seat so unfotunately missed viewing the rockies. Landed in LA and got pleasantly blasted with heat. Damn, I have to find a way to live in SoCal. In LAX I made my last phone calls and txts for 5 months (I wonder if I'll miss the phone... We'll come back to that later) I saw a Wolfgang Puck, remembered hearing high praises about the place and dropped a pretty penny for a caesar salad. Terrific decision. Surprisingly filling too... Anyways, I tricked security into letting me get on an international flight and now here I am in a 747 jumbo jet (not tufts).

747 Jumbo Jet

This plane is awesome and Air NZ service is the best I've experienced. I've already met a few interesting natives and as I look on the monitor at this crazy image of my plane in the middle of the pacific, the excitement is building (which sucks because I should be sleeping...) Ah well, gotta trust my body knows what's up. Maybe I should have tried a sleeping pill.

Well that's enough rambling for one entry. Let's see... passed 29 minutes. 1 to go, lets see how much I can write in that time. because at the end of this minute I w