Delayed in Paradise

My apologies for not having updated for the last few days. I've been quite busy with more training, spending quality time in economy class seats, and soaking in the stunning beauty known as New Zealand.

As most stories that aren't as disjointed as Pulp Fiction start from the beginning, this will be no different.

After a much needed and restful weekend, we were all up bright and early for our first day of orientation with "the company". After we were all bused up there, we signed in and were immediately sent to a table to be handed a big wad of cash (our travel per diems). Unfortunately, the rest of orientation failed to be as interesting or as thrilling as those first dollar green moments.

We were herded about the company headquarters, being stuck with needles for required flu shots, filling out obscene amounts of paperwork, getting computers checked, and being lectured on various aspects of working for a real company full of crazy people who think going to the middle of nowhere is the norm. After this exercise in boredom and required suffering, we came back for a second day of it.

At the end of the second day of orientation, we were again herded back onto buses and sent to DIA to be shipped out as a group. Check in was interesting as we completely swamped the American Airlines ticket counter with our group and our purple tagged bags. Luckily, I was one of the first to get through.

We had about four hours to kill over at DIA as our flight wasn't scheduled to later in the afternoon, so this left plenty of time to explore the airport.

Four hours later, we left the beige of Denver behind for westerly skies. A few hours after that, we entered into hazy LA.

Another extended layover later, we boarded onto the largest commercial airliner in the world, the A380. Looking out the jetway windows, all we could do was stare in awe of how massive this aircraft was. It dwarfed the 747 sitting next to it. As we walked in, we were able to get a glimpse of first class. It was amazing as to how luxurious it was. Sadly, however, we were relegated to steerage class.

Even in steerage, we each had a tv screen in the seat ahead of us with dozens of movies, games, and albums to choose from. One of the amazing features of this screen was the fact that you could watch the aircraft actually flying from a camera mounted in the vertical stabilizer. It made takeoff and landing even more amazing, especially since my seat over the enormous wing made seeing anything difficult.

A long, dark 14 hours later, with my knees aching from being crammed into an even smaller than normal steerage class seat, we finally were greeted with daylight and a sight of the Australian Gold Coast. Shortly after that, we made our arrival in Sydney.

A dash through the international terminal led us straight to our next and final flight for the day. We boarded the "baby" 767 widebody for our three hour hop to Christchurch, better known to those of us with the company as "Cheech".

As the land of New Zealand first came into sight as the Tasman Sea came to an end, I sat by the window in awe the the rugged beauty of the South Island. Snow covered mountains led to wide expanses of luscious green land. For the rest of the time we were airborne, my head was turned and looking out the window, leaving my neck a little sore afterward.

After landing, I made it through customs with no problems. However, one of my bags did not fare well and had to be decommissioned. Luckily I didn't appear to lose anything out of it.

Once we dragged ourselves out of the airport, we were immediately met by the shuttle company charged with trucking us around and taken to our respective hotels.

Checking into the Hotel So, I was wondering what kind of odd place I'd entered into. It is a very trendy, hipster type establishment. Lots of unique decorations and styling that you don't normally see in your average hotel, but this place is far from average.

After checking in and making it up to my room, I was greeted with a dark ten by ten box that contained everything I need to survive my time here in Cheech. The darkness continued for about ten minutes as I couldn't figure out how to turn the lights on. Like the rest of the hotel, everything here is unique including the light switches. It turns out that you need to put your room access card into a slot by the door, and then hit the switches to turn on the lights. Odd indeed, and a feature that probably led to the irritation of my neighbors as my jet lag induced grumpiness led to some less than civilized uttering.

After finally getting the lights on and cleaned up after a long day and a half of traveling, I joined many of the others at the TravelEx money exchange.

Briefly, I'd like to mention that the Kiwi dollar is not real money. It's some kind of plastic sheet that has pictures and numbers that try to make it look like money, but it's not real. However, I was very pleased to see that this fake money was weaker than our greenback and getting more fake money for my real money somewhat made up for it.

As a group of firefighters lost in a foreign country are often wont to do, we immediately located the nearest pub, known as Bailes.

As it turns out, Bailes happens to be the unofficial pub of the US Antarctic Program. When you walk in, you are greeted with years upon years of Antarctic memorabilia covering the walls. The other great thing that you find there is a wonderful selection of Kiwi beer.

After calling it a night fairly early (exhaustion finally won out) I came back to my windowless yet chic cell of a room and sacked out for the night.

This brings me to today, Friday. (Also, just as a note, apparently I'm a day ahead of most of you. We left LA on a Tuesday, and arrived in Cheech on a Thursday. Something about the international date line.) I was up and early for our trip over to the CDC, or the Clothing Distribution Center.

There we were sent into a large room with orange bags covering the floor. Two of these bags were mine and contained all of my ECW (Emergency Cold Weather) gear. The sizes had been sent in previously, and I was pleased to find that everything fit well.

This also led to hearing official word on our flights, and for the reason that this entry is titled "Delayed in Paradise".

As it turns out, we were supposed to be the third flight to the Ice and scheduled to leave Saturday (tomorrow). However, due to both bad weather and mechanical issues with the C-17 we're supposed to take down, all flights have boomeranged back to Cheech, failing to get even the first flight of people down. This leaves us "stranded" in the best place in the world that I've yet to see until at least Kiwi Monday and possibly even later.

We're not complaining.

Since we had the rest of the day off, I decided to get a few things done and take the opportunity to explore Cheech some.

I have yet to see such a wonderful city in my life. It's full of flavor, history, and awesomeness. Antarctic explorers have a long and storied history in this city, as it's been the stepping off point for many. This is reflected by memorials everywhere, even in the Christchurch Cathedral.

Hopefully I can get some more pictures up soon, but bandwidth is choppy here.

This leads me to present time, and as such, I can no longer tell of things I've done. As a result, I can only hope to have some great adventures tomorrow which I can eventually share with all of you (Both of you?) here.