I got up from my comfy gigantic hotel bed in Sydney on time and made it to the airport for 8:00am. Had to pay $135 for my luggage being too heavy, which sucked but I had to just bite the bullet because I wasn't going to take stuff out. Went through customs again (this would be the third time already for this trip. By the end of my almost-three-day-journey it would be five times I had to suffer in those long lines).
So I got on my plane to LA. I got an aisle seat, which was actually great. You don't wanna be stuck on the inside for a 12 and a half hour flight, especially when there is nothing to see out the window except Pacific Ocean for the entire time anyway. I watched four movies, one of which was the first Lord of the Rings, and in between movies I was reading The Hobbit. I guess you could say I did things a little backwards. But it was cool to see LOTR after I lived in New Zealand and took the tour, because I recognized a lot of the places that the scenes were shot in, so that was fun.
^EMILY BEING FRODO FROM THE SCENE BELOW
ME, EMILY, AND SOME GERMAN GIRL HIDING FROM THE BIG BLACK HORSE THAT RIDES OVER
EMILY AND I PRETENDING TO BE GANDALF AND ... THAT OTHER GUY. SORRY. I AM SO BAD WITH MOVIES.
So the trip from Sydney to LA was long, but tolerable. Once I got to LA was when things really started to get bad.
I had to pick up my luggage and bring it to my next flight and check it again. All 100lbs of it. I got it and lugged it around trying to find where I needed to be. I stopped and asked for help from the HELP DESK, which was anything but helpful. They told me to take an elevator and go outside and walk to terminal 5, which I did, and it was so far away and it was hot out and I was getting sweaty and tired and once I got there, it turned out terminal 5 was not even where I was supposed to be. I wandered around a few other terminals before asking for help again, and this time the person sent me to terminal THREE, which was the wrong terminal ALSO. After asking for help a third time, I was directed to take another elevator to level 3 before doing this that and the other, but when I got in the elevator, it only went up to level two. So I took it up to two, and just happened to stumble upon Virgin Airlines domestic departures, which was what I was trying to find all along. So thanks to nobody, I found it, after 2 hours of dragging my luggage all over LAX.
So I got in line to check my luggage and get my boarding pass. There was only about 5 people ahead of me, but for some reason I stood in that line for about 25 minutes. Once I finally got up there, they told me I wasn't even in the system. I didn't have a spot on that flight. I guess when "they" (V Australia, I guess) changed my flights because of the ash cloud, they never ACTUALLY changed my flight from LA to NY, so I was stuck there with no flight home. Their flights were all filled at that point, too, so I couldn't even get on any of them. I had to figure stuff out with a bunch of retarded airline employees for 2 hours before they got me a flight to NY on a different airline: Delta. Ironically enough, I had to walk all the way back to terminal 5, the terminal I was sent to in the first place.
Once I got there I had to argue with more dumb airline people about how I was NOT going to pay AGAIN for my luggage being too heavy, since I already paid to get it all the way to NYC, and it wasn't my fault or even my choice that I changed to their airline.
When that was over, one employee just told the other, "you don't have to do anything just throw the luggage in there with the rest" ... and I stopped him and said "are you sure? it doesn't have Delta tags....." and he said it was fine and threw it in there with the rest. I was just glad to get rid of it after 4 hours of dragging it around, but I had a bad feeling.
My 6 hour flight across the country wasn't bad. I had a window seat but I just used the window to sleep against for most of it. It was cloudy so I couldn't see much of anything if I stayed up, anyway.
I arrived at JFK and was greeted by Brendan!!!! Exciting! Then we waited and waited and waited at the luggage carousel for my luggage which of course never showed up. Talked to more stupid airline people who probably took the title as 'dumbest.' They were telling me that I was supposed to provide THEM with the information of where my bags were, and I was supposed to give THEM receipts and tags and numbers that their co-workers never gave ME because they thought they didn't have to, even though I told them they probably should have. Very very stupid. So Delta told us it was Virgin's problem, and Virgin told is it was Delta's problem. Brendan and I took the airport train all the way to the Virgin terminal, to talk to them, and they were, of course, just as stupid. They said since I didn't take their flight, they had no information on my bags. Basically no one was responsible for my bags, even though someone got paid because they were over weight. Hmm. So mid-complaint I spot my bag on the virgin carousel, for the flight I wasn't even on. My bags and I took two different planes. Brendan and I scoffed them up and got the heck out of there.
I never would have found them if Brendan and I didn't do the footwork ourselves, once again, no thanks to anyone else.
So I got home and was greeted by nice "Welcome Home" posters and banners at both Brendan's house, and my house.
WINSTON AND HIS NZ SHEEP BIRTHDAY PRESENT I SENT HIM FROM QUEENSTOWN!!!
MY ROOM!!! COMPLETE WITH MY CUTE PUP!
It's weird to be back only because it isn't that weird. I kind of feel like I never left, but I have a big 4 month chunk of time here that I skipped. I didn't think my jet lag was that bad until I arrived at the mall way early in the morning and wondered why it wasn't open. In Wellington right now, it doesn't get light until 8am and gets dark at about 5:30pm, so since it was nice and sunny I figured it was the middle of the day. Wrong. It was 10am on a Sunday. I considered sleeping on a bench in the mall until the eyebrow waxing place was open, which was the reason I went there, but then I remembered it isn't acceptable to sleep on a mall bench. I've spent far too much time in airports lately.
So I wandered around the mall for about an hour waiting for the place to open up, and I realized that it is going to be really hard for me to adjust to walking on the right side of things. Driving on the right was not weird at all, but walking on the right is really hard for me for some reason.
Little things like this pop up now and then: How I can't tell what time of day it is, or I want to sleep on a bench in public, or walk on the left side. Or how when I open my front door I still expect there to be a Christmas tree there. Just weird little things.
I haven't been able to enjoy summer or my time home yet. At all. I haven't seen any of my friends. I haven't had a Dunkin' iced coffee yet. I haven't even really left the house.
Pretty much as soon as I got home I came down with a really bad case of strep. Probably from the plane. I've been laying around being miserable for three days now. Yesterday I even spent the day in the hospital getting morphine and fluids through an IV because I couldn't even swallow at all. I'm slowly getting better and I have some pain pills now to help me tolerate the pain enough to get some fluids down and keep the temperature away.
In other great news: I found out my job is paying $1.25 LESS than it did last year. Awesome.
Despite the stressful and endless journey home, the sickness, and the ultimate bummer: the fact that I'm no longer in New Zealand, I'm still happy to be home, and I figure it can only go up from here.
Oh, and now that I've had the grand screening of my bungee video so that I could see my parents reactions in person, I'll try to upload it and post it here.
See ya!
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