(not really) LOST

The flight from Los Angeles to Auckland, NZ was over twelve hours long. The plane was enormous, and I equipped myself with earplugs, an eye mask, and a neck pillow purchased at the Hollywood K-Mart. We took off after midnight, and were served dinner two hours later. I tried to watch various movies on the six-inch screen pasted on the back of the seat a foot from my face. I vaguely remember liking Julie & Julia more than the book, and 500 Days of Summer just made me more tired than I already was. Being crammed in the 747 for so long made me feel dried-out, sore, cranky, tired, stir-crazy, scared, sweaty, and bored. I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t really hear the films’ dialogue in the cheap Qantas Air headphones. Nothing left to do but sit there contemplating the possibility of us ending up on an island in the South Pacific lost in time and space…
Eventually, we landed, and the only time-shift was that we left on a Friday and arrived on a Sunday. Saturday never happened. Oh well. Beats a polar bear attack.
We spent most of Sunday in the Auckland airport, winding through various security checkpoints, only to pass through and find another line, x-ray machine, and pat-down waiting on the other side. Auckland adds drug-sniffing dogs and chemical-trace swab tests of my bags to the mix. They also seem suspicious of how little baggage I am carrying, even though I kept it at a minimum due to the limitations on their cheap-ass budget Jetstar flight.
Chris and Ray meet us at the Sydney airport, and we had some Indian food before getting on a train to Newcastle. I read about the Dirty Projectors in Uncut magazine, and dozed in and out of sleep for the three-hour ride to Chris’.
Chris lives with his wife Jenny and son Wolfgang in little house in an industrial section of a suburb called Wickham. Wolfgang is seven months old and likes to gnaw on our sandals (or thongs, as they say here.)
On Monday, we walked downtown, and went to the market, where I discovered non-refrigerated milk that costs half of what the refrigerated kind costs. We ran through some Tiger Saw songs, and quizzed Chris on the Australian (“Strain”) slang in the appendix of my Australia Insight guide book. (“neck oil” = “beer”, for instance.)