SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Just before touching down in Christchurch, a moth emerges from some unknown hiding place and flits about about the passengers. I step off the plane into the welcome humidity and I grin a little as I stand under the dusky skies, waiting to get on the bus that will deliver us to the airport terminal. By the time I make it through immigration and customs, the sun has set and the sky gone dark. The airport parking lot is lit up like a small city and so prohibits even the faintest glimpse of a star. For now, the damp air on my bare arms and the lush hedgerows lining my path are enough stimulation. By the time I've wrestled my two 70# duffle bags in and out of the shuttle, checked in at my elevator-free hotel, and manhandled the bags up a flight of steps, I am glistening with sweat. I trade my wool socks and shoes for sandals and set off down the block with a friend in search of food. It is no easy feat at this late hour, but the manager of a nearby Thai restaurant agrees to keep the kitchen open a little late to feed us. After months of deprivation, I could not be more grateful for the bowl of steaming red curry that he sets before me, teeming with lightly steamed, still crisp zucchini, peppers, and broccoli. I enjoy this first perfect meal in a tiny courtyard filled with oversized potted plants, and in the good company of friends who have arrived with me from the frozen continent. For all the failures on the U.S. Antarctic Program, good company has never been one of them.
A shower, a bed, a 3:45 am wakeup call, and another round of bag wrestling, and I find myself right back at the airport. A fresh mango smoothie is small consolation for the early hour of the day, and the exhaustion I feel already at the start of a long journey.
The flight from Christchurch to Sydney was gloriously uneventful, and I slept for most of the flight in spite of the cramped seats. Sydney presented the usual round of double security checkpoints, an hour long wait in a line at a transfer desk, and an angry group of Chinese tourists who did nothing to improve anyone's morning. Finally sliding my passport across the desk to the ticket agent, past the leader of the group still angrily shouting at the agent that he and his sixteen travelling companions WOULD NOT get in the queue, I politely gave my destination only to learn that I would need to return three hours hence for my boarding pass. After a brief foray in the heart of the shopping mall that the international terminal mimics, I've settled into a much quieter area in a narrow wing. I watched as the clouds rolled in, and as it started to rain on one side of the building before the other. The rain has now crossed over so that the sky is equally gray in every direction, with a steady rain falling into giant puddles on the tarmac. In spite of the sealed building, I can smell the wet concrete, and secretly wish I could slip outside for a moment and stand in the rain. The only water that has fallen from my skies in the last six months has been the frozen variety.
Just four more hours here before I will board a 15+ hour transoceanic flight that will deliver me first to Dallas, and then on to Cincinnati. I am blissfully bypassing LAX this year, and that is the best thing I can say about this 48 hour commute.
