The Flight

We started off in Boise, on Sunday April 21 at 6pm… Well, not exactly, our flight was delayed until 8pm, which meant we were not catching the connecting flight to Auckland, NZ (and then to Christchurch). Melissa talked to the gate lady and we got transferred to another United flight that arrived in SFO at 8pm and would allow us to catch the transfer. We catch the Auckland flight, but one of our bags didn’t (that’s a completely separate blog entry).

The flight to New Zealand is 12 hours… After running a marathon, being on the verge of cramping, along with every muscle below the hips being sore… That’s a long 12 hours. But, we enjoyed the flight. I even conducted an experiment. I have always heard the toilets flush counter-clock wise in the southern hemisphere. The airplane toilet would soon become my experiment. Yes, that’s right… Since we started the flight in the northern hemisphere and ended in the southern hemisphere, it was a perfect controlled experiment. After the flight started, I watched the real time airplane tracker to insure we were still in the northern hemisphere, and then ran back to the toilet to conduct the first part of the experiment. I flushed the toilet, after using it. (I should have brought my camera and took a movie for collecting experiment data.) The flush was somewhat inclusive, since there wasn’t a lot of water, it was blue and it seemed to be shot out of nozzles. But, I think the blue stuff rotated clockwise. The first part the experiment was done. After crossing the educator and being within 2 hours of New Zealand, I conducted the second part of the experiment. The data isn't conclusive, but there a strong likeliness that toilets flush counter clockwise in the southern hemisphere. I need to do more research and collect more data on the subject. I will continue my research in New Zealand.

As for the flight, we each had our own "entertainment" device built into the seat in front of us. It consisted of a 7” flat screen and a “game controller”. They had roughly 20 movies to view and about 50 TV shows, along with information on New Zealand, video games, etc… I watched Blood Diamonds and Happy Feet; Melissa watched some stupid chick movie and Happy Feet. Played a video game; space invaders. It was pretty cool, and it ran WinCE. Hmm… How did I know it runs WinCE… I crashed it. J I am pretty good at space invaders, after playing about 15 minutes with one guy. A dialog popped up about some type of memory issue. I clicked one of the dialog boxes and got back to my game… Within seconds… The screen when blank and the device was rebooting, displaying WinCE boot messages. I tried to find my camera, but was unable to get it out before it was done booting…

The food on the flight was pretty good, given its airplane food. The one interesting point about the food is they have free wine. In fact, I think they would rather fill up your wine glass than water glass. I passed on the wine, since I wanted to stay hydrated. Melissa did too.

We both slept well. Melissa threw her Fleece over her head and became the Ghost.

As the flight was over at 8am New Zealand time, we were ready for the first day in New Zealand it. It will be a long and interesting drive to Marahua, NZ on the border of the Abel Tasman National Park.