In a very short while – not that short, but getting closer – I will be boarding a series of planes to take me from this small island to the other side of the planet. I have been doing a lot of research, from books and on-line, text and photo, studied languages and maps to get this far.

I’ll be landing in Frankfurt, but it’s not Germany that will take my time. I’ll head off to catch a train from Berlin to Poznan to begin the first of the 5 countries that I plan to travel through.

I will certainly be taking pictures along the way, rather than resorting to linking to other peoples’ photos. If given time and network access, some of them may be posted here while I am still traveling. No guarantees, though. I may be left with a huge pile to sort through at the end, some of which may land here, either as a trickle or a flood. In any case, it may be better to watch facebook and twitter to see what’s happening along the way¹.

¹ I may or may not update Cedric’s twitter. He’s currently neither followed nor following anyone. It’ll depend a lot on whether I can get relatively cheap mobile phone access when I’m over there.

I booked my flights last night for my next vacation. I will be spending several weeks in Eastern Europe later this year. Having been reading through the travel guides for a few weeks, the excitement levels are building. International flight prices are fairly low right now, so my budget will be used more as being-there money rather than getting-there money, which I am thrilled about.

There is a ton of stuff to do before I go—travel insurance, rail passes, itinerary, and so on—but I still have a few months to get it all going. Not long, but a long time to wait.

I took Friday as a vacation day and jumped on a plane to Sydney. The goal was to visit Steph in Newcastle and get back for the end of the weekend. Lessons learned along the way:

• It’s not good enough to know where your passport is when you’re already at the airport.
• A weekend isn’t long enough to fly to Sydney and catch a train to Newcastle. Not for a decent visit.
• Stuff in Aussie isn’t actually cheaper than in New Zealand, just harder for me to get to.
• Carrying wine across border is impossible. Don’t even try. I think it’s a conspiracy to force us all to buy crap wine at duty free shops.

In the end, the visit was great but the travel was pretty frustrating. Getting there is not half the fun when airports are involved. Too much hassle for what it’s worth.

I stopped in at a travel agent on the weekend to look at flights home for Christmas. I’m just about to call and confirm them, and pay for them tonight on my way home from work. The plan is to head to Edmonton on December 19th, go back to Vancouver on the 30th and return to New Zealand on January 2nd, landing on the 4th. This gives me 2 weeks in Canada and New Years Eve in Vancouver. I can still change around my internal flights, but the international flights are quite rigid. I’d hate to have to shift my Air New Zealand flight and lose the benefits¹.

I’ve briefly spoken to family about this trip, but knowledge of it has yet to be widely circulated. It is the first time I’ll be home for Christmas since moving to New Zealand, so I’ll understand the shock that this decision may bring, but I hope to catch up with people as time allows. Let me know what plans are afoot and I’ll do my best to make myself available.

¹ I’m not flying through the US. At all. Not one bit. You can’t underestimate the exhilaration that this knowledge brings. No US customs, no US stamp, no US crap at all.

Road trips are great. Pack some friends into some cars and head out. It almost doesn’t matter where you go, just go have fun. Since Leanne’s last weekend in New Zealand coincided with the Queen’s Birthday long weekend, I took an extra day off work and we packed the car. There is a lot of the country that I’ve never been through, so it was a new experience for both of us, heading through the Rimutaka range towards a farm near Dannevirke. After a couple days on the farm, we paused through Napier and stopped at Taupo for the night. The last day was almost all driving: up to Rotorua and then back down towards Wellington, stopping only for food and fuel.

The weather was a bit hit and miss, but the shelter of the hills at the farm kept us from feeling the worst of it. Cold, sure, but not bitter. In most cases, if you were in the sun, it was fine. Shorts and sandals weather, and good for photos.

Getting back is the hardest part, as expected. The brain shuts off and there’s nothing in the fridge. Coming back is really a withdrawl procedure, not to mention sorting through pictures and getting through the distractions before the recovery procedure. I’m sure I’ll be back at it by the weekend…

The series of flights to get home has made me entirely rethink my desire to take part in air travel. Sure, it’s better for the environment, but it’s definitely better for my sanity.

It started with a simple delay. While on the airstrip in Wellington, the pilot made an announcement about a flock of seagulls persistently occupying the runway. It wasn’t long before we were off and away. However, it did leave me running between the domestic and international terminals in Auckland to get to my next flight. Once boarded, we were off to San Francisco.

I’d been thrilled about not flying through Los Angeles for this flight. I hate American security policy – it’s demeaning and unnecessary – and LAX stands for most of what I hate. Going through SFO was going to be a dream in comparison. It’s almost surprising just how wrong I can be. SFO is a horrible airport. It’s a horribly boring airport. The only thing of interest that I found over the course of my scheduled 5 hour layover was an aviation museum, but it was closed for a private function. By the time that it was announced that we were delayed by another 1.5 hours, I was looking for a rafter to hang myself from.

As it turned out, Air Canada had a mechanical problem with our scheduled plane and we had to wait for another flight to come in before we could fly out. Luckily, I was scheduled for a 2.5 hour stop in Vancouver before my unconnected connection to Edmonton. I’d be there an hour before the flight was to leave. We seemed to wait on the airstrip for a long time, however. The pilot announced that this was a short delay while they were checking numbers; we’d be pulled to the runway momentarily. A half hour of moments later, we were finally in motion. By the time we landed, I had half an hour to get through customs, get my luggage and get transferred to my flight to Edmonton. Salting the wound, we had a last minute gate change – 10 minutes stolen. To make matters worse, I managed to leave my borrowed laptop on the plane and had to return for it. It didn’t matter in the end, however. My suitcase didn’t come through until 5 minutes before my flight was leaving. I hit the transfer desk as the flight was leaving. It was never going to happen. I was directed up to ticketing to see what they could do for me.

“Welcome to Air Canada ticketing. I will be your personal assailant. How may I frustrate you tonight?”

It was 11pm, the last flight to Edmonton had already left and I had very few options available. The ticketing agent proceeded to tell me that because I was transferring from Air New Zealand, operated by Air Canada, and missed an Air Canada flight, they had no obligation to me as a passenger. I was brushed off and pissed off. I booked a nearby hotel for the night and fumed over my options for the next day. Thankfully, I’d picked up travel insurance to cover the borrowed laptop. I’ll get back the cost of the hotel. The next morning, I’d see about flights.

When I got back to the ticketing desk, the evil robot had been replaced with several humans, one of which was willing to put me on the next flight out to Edmonton. “No need to add insult to injury.” I arrived in Edmonton just after noon yesterday, nearly 12 hours late. I’m still trying to decide whether I should write a letter of complaint to Air Canada over the issue. It worked out in the end, but there should be some sort of record of my disapproval.

My return flight will hopefully be better. I’ve got a longer delay between the Air Canada flight and the Operated By Air Canada flight, so it should be less likely to have that sort of problem. I’ve got another 4 hour layover in Suicide SFO, but I’ll have a bit of shopping to do – not 4 hours worth, but maybe I can fake breaking a leg and humour myself at the expense of the airport, thinking that I might sue them for something.

I don’t remember hating flying this much. I don’t remember so many delays, so much hassle and annoyance. Is this the future of air travel? I think it’s time to rethink my travel plans. I don’t think this is worth it.

In light of the medical stuff going on at home, I’m taking 3 weeks to spend with family. I leave Wellington tomorrow afternoon and return on the morning of April 11th. I’ll have my phone and at least intermittent internet connectivity, so I won’t be entirely out of contact. Understand that this is not a social trip, though. It will be time to spend with family.

I flew up to Auckland this past weekend with a friend of mine to see the Snow Patrol concert. Since it was a Thursday, we planned to take two days off work and spend the weekend. Being the peak of summer, there was a lot going on to choose from. For those who know me, it’s a surprise that I ended up at the beer festival.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to visit everyone I wanted to see, or spend as much time with them as I’d like, but that’s the nature of weekend travels. There’s never enough time.

According to this snippet, Air New Zealand may be adding a direct route from NZ to Vancouver, bypassing the usual stops in Honolulu, Los Angeles or San Francisco. I can’t imagine better news; I’ve been hoping to find a flight path home without being subjected to the crappiness of American policies on in-transit passengers.

I received a card from my dad yesterday, in response to the letter I sent a few weeks back. In the card, he placed several bank notes, all in pristine condition, from various countries. I’ve never been a collector of things, but I now find myself with a collection. I’m not entirely sure what to do with it. I should take care of them and put them into a photo wallet of some sort, but after that, is there anything to be done? The idea that I had was to use it as a travel guide – a list of places to go:

• Haiti
• New Zealand
• Columbia
• Paraguay
• Guatemala
• Argentina
• Canada
• Scotland
• Some country with Cyrillic script
• Chile

I’ve obviously already been to Canada and New Zealand, which means that I’m off to a decent start. Now it’s just a matter of keeping it all going.