.. But they tried to kill us with their oversized and cheaply priced meals. But I’m skipping ahead. The flight from Brisbane to New Zealand was uneventful. When we landed we were greeted in the traditional New Zealand manner (with a dozen shepp thrown over the aircraft as we taxied into the terminal). I sat in the departures lounge for an hour or so before we got onto a bigger (and presumably better) plane and made our way to Los Angeles. I was seated right at the back next to Jay from Arizona. I started talking to him about Gila monsters, and he correctly guessed that I am a herpetologist (the “Snake Wrangler” t-shirt might have been a give away too). Jay and I were getting along just fine until we hit some turbulence and I started vomiting. That apparently kills the conversation. So I spent the next 12 hours sitting upright with my eyes closed, with a paper bag near by. Good times.
We finally landed in LA and a thanked the merciful Lord that my feet were on solid ground again. Alecia was flying in from Vancouver (in Canadia), and we were fortunately going to be in the same terminal. So I tracked her arrival gate down and sat in front of it and waited. And waited. And waited some more. I was starting to think this was her not-so-subtle way of telling me that she didn’t think things were working out between us, when she finally walked through the gate. I nearly didn’t recognise her, having not seen her for 6 months and 4 days. After the shaking of hands and enquires as to how one’s flight was, we made our way to the hostel we were going to stay at for the night. Delightful place. Lovely staff. The next day we caught a plane to Dallas…
Yay for CANADIA!