Home from New Zealand. Time Travel.
Apr. 23rd, 2024 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerNew Zealand Travelog #43
Back home - Mon, 22 Apr 2024, 8am
We're back home from New Zealand now. ...Well, when "now" was Monday morning; it's taken me until Tuesday night to post this blog.
Our flight landed at SFO a bit early, around 6:30am. The journey had been nearly 12 hours in economy class, albeit United's Economy Plus, with a bit more legroom. This time there was no empty middle seat between Hawk and me. And the person between us was not exactly small.
I got zero sleep on the flight, absolutely none. Partly that was due to the cramped seating, partly it was the timing. 6:30am San Francisco time is 1:30am New Zealand time. Staying up the whole flight was just like staying up late. Except now it's Monday morning here, and I've got a whole day ahead of me. Yeah, I think I'll be crashing early tonight.
One curiosity of flights back from Asia is that they arrive before they depart. Our flight left Auckland Monday the 22nd at 1:50pm and arrived San Francisco Monday the 22nd at 6:35am. That's an effect of crossing the International Date Line. It's (spoiler alert) part of a plot twist in the classic Jules Verne novel I read as a child, Around the World in Eighty Days. Or, as I like to call it, the second closest I've ever come to time travel.
Thankfully things moved swiftly once we were off the plane at SFO. US immigration and customs move quickly now with Global Entry. It took them several years to get things properly automated, and the cost has been surely billions of dollars plus all our privacy from the government (the system uses biometric identification), but at least now it works. And the Uber ride home was pretty quick, even though we hit the early end of rush hour traffic. We walked through our own front door at 7:45am. And while I could technically have made today a workday, I very intentionally took it off. Today's a day to unwind from travel and get back on the local timezone! And likely also take a nap to make up for being up all night.
Back home - Mon, 22 Apr 2024, 8am
We're back home from New Zealand now. ...Well, when "now" was Monday morning; it's taken me until Tuesday night to post this blog.
Our flight landed at SFO a bit early, around 6:30am. The journey had been nearly 12 hours in economy class, albeit United's Economy Plus, with a bit more legroom. This time there was no empty middle seat between Hawk and me. And the person between us was not exactly small.
I got zero sleep on the flight, absolutely none. Partly that was due to the cramped seating, partly it was the timing. 6:30am San Francisco time is 1:30am New Zealand time. Staying up the whole flight was just like staying up late. Except now it's Monday morning here, and I've got a whole day ahead of me. Yeah, I think I'll be crashing early tonight.
One curiosity of flights back from Asia is that they arrive before they depart. Our flight left Auckland Monday the 22nd at 1:50pm and arrived San Francisco Monday the 22nd at 6:35am. That's an effect of crossing the International Date Line. It's (spoiler alert) part of a plot twist in the classic Jules Verne novel I read as a child, Around the World in Eighty Days. Or, as I like to call it, the second closest I've ever come to time travel.
Thankfully things moved swiftly once we were off the plane at SFO. US immigration and customs move quickly now with Global Entry. It took them several years to get things properly automated, and the cost has been surely billions of dollars plus all our privacy from the government (the system uses biometric identification), but at least now it works. And the Uber ride home was pretty quick, even though we hit the early end of rush hour traffic. We walked through our own front door at 7:45am. And while I could technically have made today a workday, I very intentionally took it off. Today's a day to unwind from travel and get back on the local timezone! And likely also take a nap to make up for being up all night.
no subject
Date: 2024-04-24 10:41 am (UTC)What is the closest you've ever come to time travel?
~Sor
no subject
Date: 2024-04-24 12:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-04-24 01:51 pm (UTC)~Sor