Saturday, March 10, 2012

Virgin Australia, Boeing 777, Flight 2

8:55 pm Thursday March 8

We have airborne for about 25 minutes... Maybe 150 miles out, only 7,600 miles or so to go. The fasten seat belt light is off, and they just played a video about how to survive (my term) including suggesting we walk around the cabin... They provide water bottles, which you refill at a water station... Encouraging us to move about the cabin.

Even before the water, they distributed the Australian immigration papers... Of course, in addition to spaces for name, passport number, and reason for my visit, after asking if I have tuberculosis, or a criminal record comes question No. 10, asking if I have had recent contact with with farm animals. I answered "no" to avoid any additional possibly difficult questions... I may have shared my office with a chicken as recently as this morning... I may have had an encounter with a sheep today... We have them at work, on the farm... I never imagined that this might be a problem...

The cabin crew is working their way through the cabin serving wine... This is not domestic air travel... Dinner is next... I am watching "The Descendants" There is music for later... The IPad is out... I am blogging (you may have figured that out by now, maybe not the IPad part, but likely the blogging thing)

The Descendants is set in Hawaii... The current scenes on Kauai... I have been there a couple of times, most recently last November, so the landscapes, are familiar... There are layered stories... One involving the sale of a large piece of Kauai... Members of the Patterson family sold their large family holding on Kauai in recent years... The details are different, but the story seems derivative.

By now it is 10:30 at least in California... Probably 9:30 here 30,000' over the North Pacific with 6,444 miles to go... We are racing time zones... If we reach the Date Line before local midnight we will lose Friday March 9th completely... It will be close, but I believe that we will have a few minutes of Friday, abet at 580 mph in a silver sausage... A nice silver sausage...

Now 7:44 Pacific (California) time... By now we have likely crossed the date line, and Friday has become Saturday... Probably 3:44 am... I have slept restlessly for just under 9 hours... Other passengers are starting to wake, their internal clock fighting with the darkness out side...

9::00 pst... 2 hours out of Sidney... We had a request for "any medical doctor or nurse" a bit ago... Now, at 4:00 am Sidney time the passengers are starting to stir, and they have announced meal service is starting...

11:05 pst... 6:05 local... Dawn is just breaking...We are on the ground... "Quentin Australia" is coming aboard to assess a passenger, likely related to the call of a Medical Doctor some 3 + hours ago... Once (if) they release us we will claim bags, clear customs and emigration and take a taxi to our B&B in The Rocks...

A quick note... I am posting this 18 hours after I finished it... the first time I had a good internet... the is another post nearly ready... If I find another internet hot spot... and photos... oh yes photos... it is all about the photos...

Randy

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