Flying into the future>>>


Bags. Check.

Passports. Check.

Camera. Check.

Goodbye to family. Check.

St. Louis Airport

Off and up into the clouds. And over the clouds! And above the clouds for hours...

This is my first flight and it was amazing. Four hours passed by and the lights of the big sprawling city of LA lay below us. From one side of the horizon to the other, we could see nothing but city lights - like a Lite Brite the size of... well... Los Angeles.

Since St. Louis was a really nice airport I was expecting even more from LA. I'm thinking restaurants galore, grab a bite to eat and wait for the plane. Flying west into the pacific time zone should be flying into the future so maybe it will even be like the Jetsons or something with smoothies and meal pills. But to our dismay, trudging down the carpeted halls of LAX we realized we must have gone into the past, because the 80's called and they want their airport back. It was dingy, covered with old carpet, and we couldn't even find any place to eat, with the exception of one tiny cafe, the line stretching down the hall, and the prices reaching Californian proportions. This IS California, so I guess it was to be expected.

Eventually we loaded onto a HUGE plane, the kind with an upper deck and wings the size of a small whale. We whiled the 10 pitch-black nighttime hours away attempting to sleep. As dawn was about to arrive we saw islands dotting the ocean, and the plane swooped below the clouds. We had landed in Fiji. The sun rose over mountains as we awaited our next flight.

We sat next to an Indian-Fijian woman on her way to visit her sister in Auckland. She had never flown before and was terrified. We chatted for 3 hours (we have things in common - we both love trees and this was our first adventure on airplanes) and I showed her pictures of the clouds we were flying over, because she was afraid to look out the window.

Before we knew it, we saw them. Islands.

We were finally about to land in New Zealand.

Auckland aerial view.

I held her hand as the plane floated down, and finally stopped. Parting with my new friend, we stepped out of the plane and into our new lives in our new country that we will call home.

HAPPY MONDAY
The time has finally come. We are leaving for New Zealand in a matter of hours. Goodbye to this side of the world and hello to "down under". And hello to the FUTURE! It's already Tuesday there! That makes us time travelers, which is even more exciting than just being "normal" tourists.

Not that we're tourists. I mean, sure I will have my hat, my wild print shirt, and my camera around my neck but I always look like that. No no my friends, we have shiny blue "permanent resident" visas in our passports. Nevertheless, the first place we will be arriving is Auckland. We'll be touring around the biggest city for a day or two before high-tailing down to Wellington, where we plan to live. We scrounged up enough money to forgo camping at the end of winter, so we'll be seeking a warm, inexpensive rental apartment.

The past few days have been busy with packing, boxing, sorting, and not much sleeping. We won't deny that we are last-minute people, doing last-minute things at the last minute. But we did all of that on time and right on schedule.

I really didn't think we'd be able to get everything done in time, and not be a frazzled wreck. But it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. By the time our things were mostly rounded up and we were ready to take a break last night, we found that two large buds on our huge cactus had just flowered. A good omen!


Our adventure is flowering, and butterflies fill my stomach. Oh wait, that's my stomach filled with... no food. I must have missed lunch, how can it already be 2pm?!

See you in Auckland!

Pak-n-sav

[just some of my thread]

Pak-n-Sav is a grocery store in New Zealand. Incidentally that is what we are doing at the moment.
That's right, it's that time of the year... or the month... when... we pack. Our stuff into boxes. Our very many stuffs that we have way too much of still but we can't seem to shake from the bowels of our storage containers. There are only 20 days left before takeoff, and I have loads of fabric to categorize, prioritize, and box up.

[just some of the scrap pile]

And I don't know when I will see it again.

Also a fair warning: Thimblescratch shop will be closing up soon for a couple months, so shop while you can (and help a starving artist in the process)!

[ For sale at Thimblescratch Shop!]

Last but not least, here's a kitty for your thoughts.

[Moby]