Getting To Arizona, Slowly

After more travelling than any sane person should want, I have made it to Phoenix. I spent Monday, my last full day in Sydney, moving furniture in the rain. I flew to Brisbane on Tuesday and made my way back to the Ihles' to gather the few things I had left there. Wednesday was my long-awaited departure date. I got to Brisbane International Airport via train, and left Australia that evening, bound for New Zealand.

My wonderful travel planning and decision-making skills already well-documented in other posts, I won't dwell on the less than ideal nature of this point in the trip. I got into Auckland at 11:30pm, and decided to stay at the airport. I settled onto a bench on the observation deck for the evening, though I only got about two hours of sleep. I spent the next day reading, watching movies and people watching. After the long wait, I was quite happy to finally get on the 747 that took me to San Francisco.

The flight across the Pacific took 11.5 hours, during which I slept a grand total of 2.5 hours and watched two more movies. My brief stop in San Francisco wasn't especially notable. I got from there to Phoenix by mid-afternoon Thursday, technically before I had left Auckland. My brother-in-law Aaron picked me up and took me back to his and my sister's house. Seeing some familiar faces was welcome, and setting down my fiddle and gear felt glorious after traveling for so long.

One of the best ways to start getting over jet lag I've learned is to not go to sleep right away, but to stay awake and go to bed at the normal local time. I crashed hard at about 9pm, but before then, I reckoned I had been awake, except for those two naps, for about 55 hours. I'm obviously still recovering, and I'm pretty out of it in general, not knowing what time, day, or even what season it is.