Hermosa Beach, California

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

I can't believe it's STILL January 20th, 2015.  I left Sydney, Australia today at 3:45 p.m. and arrived in Hermosa Beach today at 1:00 p.m., two hours and forty five minutes earlier than I left Sydney.  Gotta love crossing the International Date Line.  It's almost as good as being "beamed up" by Scotty!  Except for the 14 hour flight that occurred in between Sydney and Lost Angeles.  

Such a civilized breakfast on Air New Zealand.

Loved my "pod" on the flight home.

The trip was uneventful and easy.  I slept most of the way home in my little "pod".  Air New Zealand is rated number one in customer satisfaction ... by whom, I'm not certain, but they certainly get my vote!  The safety briefing was an epic film staring Elijah Wood and was a spoof on the  "Lord of the Rings" movie about the middle of the earth.  The Air New Zealand film gets the point across as well as being hysterical and entertaining.  The service on the flight was amazing, the food was good, but the bathrooms were really special.  Each bathroom had a different painting on the wall.  One had a beautiful chandelier made of forks, knives and spoons, one a book shelf lined with books with interesting titles, but my favorite was the man on the wing of the plane looking in the window.  

Painting on the bathroom wall of my flight.

It reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's  horrifying film about the man on the wing of an airplane that caused a passenger to go insane.  Those Kiwi's have a sense of humor!!  

It is so good to be home, albeit  for only a few hours.  As Dorothy says, "There's no place like home."  If the sun had been shining, I would have been drawn outside for a bike ride or a walk in the sand, but a heavy marine layer outside made it easy to get unpacked and reorganized for my flight to Washington D.C. But a later walk on the Strand made things right with the world.  

This entry concludes my  2015 Australia/New Zealand blog.  I hope at some point along the way, these stories have brought a smile to your face and maybe even made you laugh out loud.  If you've followed my blogs in the past, you may notice a different feel this time around.  I seem to have found some joy in life again.  If feels great.  Thanks for your patience along the way and I hope you’ll log in for my next adventure in April with Stevie bicycling across Denmark.  Until then, I'll use a favorite Kiwi expression taken from the Maori people meaning "be well,"  Kia Ora.