Entries this day: Air-abic Descent arrival michael zzzz

Air abic

12:29 am Wednesday 14 February 2001

It feels like I've been asleep four hours hopefully. I cannot see what the time is that just printed. I cannot see what I'm typing. So cramped. throat so dry. We stil have water and I jst drank some. Wende is so cute because I had my glasses folded and hanging from my shirt. When I woke up, I found hers hanging from my shirt as well. :-)

I'm going to sleep some more.

12:51 am

I think I just felt us gently descend a bit, but I''m sure it's not time for approach. Was it a gentle turbulence?

1:01 am

I am totally certain I just felt our airspeed decrease. 3 distinct gentle little slowdowns.

I just looked at the time 1am. Ack! 8 more hours to go; we are not yet halfway there.

actually 9 hours to go because we left late.

I've been thinking that we should save our dollars more an fly first class next time we go on a long ass trip off the continent (not including Hawaii)

Although, if when the change jar for Hawaii is full, we have plenty for first class, I don't think we would need to scrimp on it.

(I have had a five gallon`glass`jar`since`I`was`with`Tammy, and we started filling it with silver "silver" coins (no`pennies)`and`said`"when`it's`full,`we`will`go`see`the

shit I just realized I've been hitting the wrong ke for space.

We said that when it's full we will go to Hawaii. Wende and I have kept the jar and the original idea.

2:52 am

They just turned the cabin lights on, but it's 3am.. what is up with that?

Maybe this is our between meal refreshment time.

3:03 am

Yup - little sandwiches and little apple juices. I got mine, but I'm not going to eat it now. I'm going back to sleep.

4:21 am Wednesday 14 February 2001

I pretty much feel awake; I have slept basically for 7 hours. I will sleep more in a bit.

The movie Duets is on our video thing. It's pretty bad from what Wende said. It looks bad from what I can see (with no audio)

4:36 am

we have just crossed the international date line probably 20 minutes ago.

8 hours 52 minutes in the air
537mph
38000 feet
-50 C

4:44 am

I wonder if we will develop teleportation for humans in my lifetime.

Oh, about an hour ago, Roy G Biv was evident outside behind us. Now we are flying as if over the clouds of Bespin, but not quite as bright.

oh and when we crossed the date line, we had just crossed over the equator too.

5:21 am

Hey, Gail! The man behind me is reading Arabic laws and discusion of the laws, from what I understood him to say. The book is about 2 inches thick and 8 x 11 inches otherwise.

The typeface is large in the middle of the paper, and smaller typeface outside that, in columns nearly around it, and then even smaller typeface outside of that.

I don' reaaly have a way to recreate that on my site, here, but I'll think about it.

5:41 am

In English, Efriam is his name. I wrote him a note and blessed his travels and stuff. He is writing a note in Hebrew for my friend Gail. I hope I'm correct in remembering that it's Hebrew she is trying to learn! :-)

I don't know what he will write, and if I find out, I won't write it here because I don't want to give it away for Gail.

6:02 am

I just wrote Wende a valentine's letter, thanking her for such a wonderful trip together.

6:12 am

542 mph
2071 miles left
-50 C  -59 F
38000 ft = 11582 m 
10:28 hours since departure, 
5633 miles = 9065 km  traveled.

According to the video display, we are at the same latitude as Madi, tad east of Moumea

A long time ago we passed just southeast of Honolulu

6:17 am

2005 miles to destination.

It's 1:18pm yesterday at my work.

Descent

7:08 am

Breakfast. Sausage and eggs or banana cinamon crepes with coconut.

Wende had sausage because she didn't want coconut. I had crepes because mmmmmm banana cinamon.

We are just west of Noumea now.

3 hours to go.

513 mph 
38000 feet 
-59 F = -51 C

I think our steward looks like Keanu Reeves, but Wende says, "no, he (steward) is cute."

9:09 am

Just watched Bedazzled. That's a movie that Wende and I enjoyed at the theater.

507mph
38000 feet
-58F

the video says we are very close to Sydney, and therefore very close to land, and suddenly there is terrific cloudcover; is it due to the continent?

Will I be able to see the shore? Oh - we aren't over land yet.. maybe 20 minutes?

So the water has been mesmerizing to me. Texture like an orange peel closeup. There was a portion where I could see the orange peel dots and then gentle waves way larger than the dots, not affecting the dots per se. Very interesting.

The clouds we're over look like cirrus clouds, and a layer of cumulus under them. I can't really see the water, but there are patches of non-clouds, but they don't line up for me.

9:20 am

I can see water again. Oh, and there seems to be a oh my gosh we are right over the coast!!!

Like a perfect fractal from blue to tan to rolling green hills and a city. I wonder where we are. The screen says Wollongong. Hmm.

Now it's all clouds again. I'm thankful to have gotten to see the shore!

So I was saying that I saw a lot of little white dots on the water, and many of them were miles and miles out, yet still all clusterd; not sparse.. Could they have been boats?

500 mph
28 minutes left. 
still at 38000 feet.

but I just felt a tilt. It didn't seem like a downward tilt, but a turning tilt.

I can see on the map our tilt right that I felt a while ago.

497 mph.
-50 C
25 minutes left. 
make that 24
38000 feet still.

We have traveled 7320 miles so far.

9:36 am

487 mph now.

9:57 am

Just now began our descent.

I'm turning off now; I assume they will ask us to in a second.

arrival

11:46 am Wednesday 14 February 2001 (6:46pm Tuesday CST)

We went through customs pretty easily, I think because we had ETA (Electronic Tourist Authority) instead of paper.

Left hand side of the road driving would take some getting used to.

The terrain reminds me a lot of some of the outskirts of Austin.

11:53 am

Arrived at Irene and Nick's house and I won't write too much while there's people to say HI to.

michael

1:58 pm Wednesday 14 February 2001

Michael, Tom, Nick and I are watching Australian TV. So very not any more exciting than US TV.

All the girls except for Irene's mom are getting their dresses sized.

Pretty quaint little house with lovely brick and brass fireplace and low wall separating the living room from the dining room and hallway. Small triangular shaped backyard, with a huge eucalyptus (sp) tree (I think) and a little rock lined pond that needs to be emptied of dirt and leaves.

6:55 pm

We are at Nick's parent's house, where Nick's brother Michael and I just spent an hour rolling a golf ball back and forth on the outside table, and then developed a game where we roll the ball with a bowl over it, so the bowl is pushed by the ball, and then we played roll the ball over the bowl in the middle of the table. then we played roll the ball and try to make it stay on top of the inverted bowl. After many many many many tries, on the order of 100 or more, I got it. So cool. Great fun to play!

8:49 pm

Talking about the myth that water in toilets flushes the other direction in Australia, Angel said, "it changes when you cross the International Date Line!"

HAHAhahahahhaaaaa!!!!

We talked a lot about differences in language. Aussie's have something called rhyming slang:

Dog's eye = meat pie
dead horse = tomato sauce

note: The letter R is mostly unspoken (like in Boston), so "horse" rhymes with "sauce."

zzzz

10:37 pm Wednesday 14 February 2001

Such a great time with family talking during and after dinner. Mostly talked about Aussie Rules Football to kick off the conversation and then just all the little cultural differences, mostly about speech: pronounciation and idioms.

I was tired, but quite thoroughly engaged by the conversation and could have stayed up much later.

Now Wende and I are sleepin' on a full sized waterbed back at Nick and Irene's house. This will be our room during this trip.