A new trip is looming... Now days away… We (the lovely T and I) are starting to think about packing... We are not actually packing... Only thinking about it.
This is a big trip... A cruise (friends think we crazy for taking a cruise in the aftermath of the Costa Concordia sinking, and now the Costa Alure fire which has left it dead in the water off the Saycells, but I digress) A cruise from Sidney Australia, south to Melbourne and Tazmainia, then over to New Zealand, working our way up the east coast of the two islands, ending at Christchurch... Not quite... We get to fly home... Via Brisbane Australia... There is a land trip before the cruse to Uluru, Ayers Rock… there is time in Sidney afterwards... maybe time to climb the bridge...
The trip is nearly three weeks... Everything from Sidney (likely hot) to Uhuru (Aka Ayer's Rock, very hot) to Melbourne, and New Zealand where it is likely to be a bit cool. We need be able to dress for a variety of climates, and everything from formal night on the ship (suit or white dinner jacket, yes, I own a white dinner jacket… don’t you?) , to a hike in the outback... All within the airline luggage allowances.
Beyond thoughts of clothing and exactly how many pairs of socks I should pack comes a list of technology... I am taking a couple of cameras, plus batteries, memory cards, battery chargers, and such... I am taking my computer so I can down load and clear the memory cards, then fill them again and again, and again... We are considering if we need a phone, and if so what plan to add to make it affordable... I will take my I pad... (I am writing this on my I pad...) mostly for music on the airplane... but also for taking notes (did I say I am writing this on my I pad..l)...
Oh, yes... The airplane... the trip… Australia is a long way from California... It's a long way from most places... It is across the Date line..(at least from California) We leave SFO Thursday evening at 5:05 pm, for LAX to catch a 8:25 pm flight which doesn't arrive in Sidney until Saturday morning at 6:25 am... About 37 hours according to our watches, but in reality, the flight is about 14 hours... The remaining hours consumed by time changes. We gain 4 hours in time zones, lose 24 over the date line, and lose one hour for daylight savings time in Sidney…
The up side is the return flight is scheduled to leave Auckland at 6:45 am to Brisbane, to leave Brisbane at 11:15 am, arrive in Los Angeles at 7:30 am, 4 hours before we left, an hour so after we left New Zealand… (the flight(s) didn’t really an hour, our watches are confused) A 12;15 we arrive at SFO… in theory 5 hours and 50 minutes after we left New Zealand…Closer to 20 hours later…
At home we are now on daylight savings time… we were not when we left… A mior win for us…
At home, I will go to work… I have a meeting scheduled… I suspect the lovely Tina will not… but she might… who knows…
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