Kiwi's Can Fly

Travel

Dec 3

The long awaited, and long planned for day, had finally arrived!! In preparation for the timezone change and on the advice of someone well-travelled, I spent the 4 days prior waking up progressively earlier to train my body clock for the LA timezone. By leaving day it was a 3am wakeup which worked really well for all the last minute chores that are inevitable prior to leaving for a holiday.

A flurry of activity, a very detailed induction of the dog sitter and a squeeze of the excessive amounts of luggage into the car and we were finally off. It was of course inevitable that literally 15mins into the most planned holiday in the universe that we had a deviation from plan: our flight out of Melbourne was delayed by nearly 2 hours!! This meant the wait in Melbourne was excessively boring and the transit through Auckland was not nearly as leisurely as planned. In fact, combined with hideous humidity, the Auckland transit was a real hustle with only just enough time to shower and change.

The flight to LA was then also delayed nearly an hour but the pilot must have had a lead boot because we landed only 10mins behind schedule! Once in LA it was a couple of hours messing about getting through customs and picking up the hire car which is a giant of a vehicle and only just fits all the luggage….

By this point, its 4pm in the afternoon and it was now desperate eyeballs time however I was also desperate to get onto the timezone so it was a forced march of Katie down to Walgreens for supplies. I was so dazed and determined that I didn’t do the googling properly and it turns out there was a way more convenient CVS only 400m away instead of the 2mile walk we ended up doing.

Highlight of the day: going to a random sports bar for dinner and ordering a spicy margarita which arrived with the obligatory blow-your-hair-back American strength and a sliced chilli plunked in as a garnish. Not quite the cocktail experience I was expecting!!