On the Way

This is an update from Los Angeles airport. We left Duluth on schedule and made it to Minneapolis incident free. After "lounging" in the Delta SkyClub for a bit, we boarded the flight to Los Angeles. Luckily I was upgraded to first class while the kids were in the back. I ate the dinner of some mushroom and cheese stuffed gnocchi, salad, and cheesecake and then went to sleep. I must have slept most of the flight as the thing I remember is waking up in time for the landing in LAX.

We got to LAX at about 7:30 PM local time and settled ourselves in the SkyClub for our three-hour wait. Only left to get some dinner at the McDonalds next to the Club. I spent a great deal of time trying to fix Jay's B&N Nook, which is dead (this thing has given problems from the start), but to no avail. The kids stayed up during the flight watching the movie and so are already starting to fade. I told them to sleep during the flight and stay awake as much as possible on the next flight, but they didn't listen. Should be an interesting first day in Sydney!

So, here we are almost exactly six years after my last trip to Australia (documented in this blog) preparing for my next trip to the continent. This time, I have Sheila and Jay who have their own blogs here and here tagging along for the fun.

Despite the URL for this blog, the main objective of the trip is to go to Queenstown, New Zealand for the 2012 Asia-Pacific ACR Conference. I'll be presenting a paper on gender differences in the processing of price information in advertisements and decided to combine it with a few days in Melbourne and Sydney. Although I have visited both cities more than once and would preferred to have headed to the west coast or up the northern coast this time, I felt that Sheila and Jay should experience the great cities of Melbourne and Sydney on their first visit to the continent.

I must be one of the very few people from Duluth who is actually leaving our summer here to head to more winter weather. But, the way this "summer" has been rainy and cloudy, the snow may make for a pleasant change.

Our plan is to fly in to Sydney, spend a day there recovering from jet lag and then fly the next day to Christchurch. We only have a day in Christchurch before we rent a car and drive to Queenstown, stopping for a night at Lake Tekapo on the way. Hopefully the snowfall won't delay us going through the mountains. This is supposed to be one of the most spectacularly beautiful drives in the world (even in the winter, I'm assured) and I'm looking forward to it.

This is my first trip to the South Island and I really should be watching Lord of the Rings again to prepare. But that may have to wait given how much stuff there is to do before our departure next Saturday.