Day 1 (July 13, 2016): "Take me to the land down-unda!"

The day we've long awaited has finally arrived:  the day that will see us South Pacific bound!  This is our third trip to that neck of the woods, but we haven't been in over a decade, so we are really looking forward to going back. 

Fresh, energetic and rarin' to go at Halifax Airport

Our friend and neighbour, Jim, picked us up just after 10am for our 11:45am Air Canada flight to Montreal. A bit of a delay, but we still had lots of time to make our connection to Los Angeles. 

Flight 1 of 12 on this trip: YHZ > YUL on an Air Canada Express Embraer 175

Our Air Canada flight to LA left a bit late, too, but we pulled into "LAX" (as Los Angeles airport is known), with its iconic 1960s control tower, at 6pm. 

Downtown LA - socked in with smog. (NOT fog!) Can you imagine breathing this in everyday?

We had no sooner exited security when I heard my name paged, asking me to return to the gate for an urgent message. That urgent message turned out to be that I had left my wallet on the plane. Whew, so glad they found it before I had changed terminals. I was oblivious to the fact I had lost it. 

We then transferred to the international terminal, cleared security, and hung out in the Korean Airlines Lounge until our Air New Zealand flight "001" left at 9:30pm.

It's Wednesday night here in LA, and our flight arrives Auckland at 5:20am Friday! Talk about a day of vacation evaporating:  that international date-line is like a highway robber of time! But we will make it up on the way home, thankfully. 

Our Air New Zealand Boeing 777. Cool to be on NZ flight "001"!

And just to show you how funky, cool and different Air NZ is, this is what adorns the wall of the loo! Ok, so it's just a pic of a chandelier, but Air NZ knows that a loo can at least have the air of being more than just a loo!

The next entry will be from Kiwi Land, or Middle Earth for all you Lord of the Rings fans. Hope you will join our 12-day journey to New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Australia.