Just arrived in Christchurch

Well, I feel like I just spent twenty hours on a plane.... probably because I just have. Since It is only about 10:30 AM in Christchurch, my hotel room is not yet ready so I thought I would take a walk. Lo and behold, I find myself at an internet cafe. So far, the trip has gone relatively smooth, considering that I spent most of the day prior to leaving for the airport suffering on the couch from my sinus infection. However, Dr. Carson finally came through and had antibiotics waiting for me at the pharmacy which we picked up on the way out. Feeling much better now. Shure is nice to have a Dr. Patient relationship when your in a pinch like that.

The flight from Denver to LA was great and uneventful, I had about a three hour layover in LA where I watched the Matrix (again) on my laptop while I waited. I believe the plane from LA to Aukland was a 747 jumbojet and it actually take a whole hour to board. Around 11 PM, I set my clock back six hours so I would start thinking in New Zealand time which seems to be working, I did get a few exceedingly uncomfortable hours of sleep on the plane. For some reason, there was some sort of metal box mounted under the seat in front of me. I believe it controlled the video systems in my row but then who knows, the point is that I could only put one foot under the seat at a time. As a result, I spent the entire night on the plan shifting from one uncomfortable position to the next and now the entire night is simply one uncomfortable blur. However, I did get three movies in to take my mind off the pain. War of the Worlds, what can I say, it was cool. Fantastic Four, Dumb! .. and the First half of "Lords of Dogtown", pretty interesting given that I was something of a skater when I was a kid and these in the movie were well known to me, in name that is.

Since I had a bunch of expensive company wireless ethernet bridges, food in my bags, had hiking boots and had visited a farm recently (with those same hiking boots), customs in Aukland pretty much took forever and I thought I was going to miss my connecting flight to Christchurch. When I finally got out of customs, I literally ran to the domestic terminal, typically a 15 minute walk according to the signs along the blue and white line rout to the terminal, which took me about 4 minutes. Felt great after sitting on my bum for the last 20 hours. However, it turned out that I as a whole hour early so I sat and sweated in the cafe nursing a cup of Joe for an hour.

So anyway, after a quick flight to christchurch, meeting with RPSC travel, here I am at an Internet cafe in Cathedral Square in downtown Christchurch. Tomorrow, I have to check in at the Clothing Distribution Center at the Antarctic Center to pickup my Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear and get ready for my flight to the ice the following day. At this rate, I should be in Mcmurdo on the 31st and on the waiting list for a flight to the South Pole. Last I heard, there were several flights to Pole backed up and sitting in Mcmurdo.