Switzerland Alpenventure: Luzern

 Luzern get 5 stars!  I love it!  Luzern often gets spelled by its French spelling of Lucerne, which is rather funny because it is in the German speaking part of Switzerland, so shouldn't it go by Luzern?  There also seems to be an emphasis in the first syllable: LOOTZ-ern.  

Yesterday morning I got up and got ready and said, "Let's seen when the next train to Luzern is?  Oh cool!  There's one in 5 minutes and one in 35 minutes and one in an hour(ish).  How cool is that to have all those options."  I figured I should be able to make the one in 35 mins though I wasn't sure, so I wasn't going to buy my ticket until I got to the train station, which was about a 15 min walk.  I had enough time to also get breakfast: a bretzel with ham (yes, spelled with a B, not a P).  I hopped on the train, took a seat and we set off about 10 minutes later.  The ride was pretty, but the area between Zurich and Luzern is still rather flattish.  You're still in the foothills of the Alps.  Before I knew it, the train was pulling into the station.

As is required, I walked out of the train station and turned the wrong direction (I also did that in Zurich, to carry on my tradition of always being turned around when leaving a station of any sort).  Maybe it was for the best because as I took my detour and eventually poured out into the area right near the river, I literally went "WOW!"  It was just so Europe.  This beautiful wooden bridge and such European buildings.  It was gorgeous. 

Lion Monument

It was too early to check into my hotel, but I was able to drop off my bags, and move my stuff I needed for the day into my smaller one.  Then I grabbed my headphones and set off for the Lion Monument, which was one end of the Luzern City App that had a self-guided audio tour available.  The Lion Monument was created back in the 1800s to honor the Swiss Guard that were injured and killed while protecting King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette at the Tuileries Palace, when the revolutionaries attacked.  The monument has a dying lion protecting a shield with the Fleur-de-Lis on it representing the French royalty.

Hofkirche St Leodegar

Up next on the tour was Hofkirche St Leodegar.  Just as I was approaching, it started to ring noon.  It is surrounded by cemetery.  Upon walking up the stairs and in through the front door, my immediate thought was "This can't be Protestant.  Did this church not get Protestant Reformed?  This has to be Catholic."  And upon looking it up, it is indeed Catholic.  How can you tell?  All the gold and paintings and such.  Things that are mostly missing from Protestant churches.

Walls in the Weinmarkt

I next passed by the Kapellplatz and City Hall.  Both important parts of old Luzern.  Then I arrived at the Weinmarkt with is a square in town...or more of a triangle, that was known as a market place for wine...of course, but also a place were performances were held in the city.  The walls are also covered in paintings.  

Zytturm Clock Tower at Musegg

Then was a walk up to the Musegg Wall.  The Wall is a part of the city's old fortifications.  It consists of 9 towers and a wall connecting them.  One of the towers includes the Zytturm, which is the old clock tower.  In fact, it is the oldest clock in the city, which means that it has a special honor.  It gets to be the first clock to chime the hour in the city.  This basically means it chimes the hour about 2 minutes ahead of the other clocks.  It also means when you can fall asleep and the windows are open, you get to hear like 5 minutes of chiming every hours instead of one.  Ask me how I know.  

Counterweights and pendulum for Zytturm

The wall was pretty cool, but totally hot inside.  It had steep steps, and was quite hot inside.  The Zytturm tower had old clock mechanisms inside of it from other clock towers in the area. You could also see the long pendulum and counterweights that kept the clock working.  You could walk across the ramparts between a few of the towers, and then you could go up one of the towers furthest from the lake.  That one had an open roof and a great view!

One of the things you could see from the roof of the Musegg Wall, was the Spreuerbrucke, a bridge across the Reuss River.  This bridge is an old wooden bridge, but not THE old wooden bridge that crosses the river.  This one is also quite old, and is at a place in the river were it was by the mills.  It is named Spreuer because of the chaff that was removed from the threshing of wheat and tossed in the river at the bridge.  The bridge has a series of paintings in the trusses.  The series includes skeletons doing things like serving dinner or out at sea or in a meeting.  The idea of it being that no one escapes death, no matter your station in life.  

Speruerbruck

Just upstream of the Speruerbrucke is the the Needle Dam.  The lake is controlled by this dam, which allows for water to be let out of the lake.  It is a rather unique dam and has been controlling lake flow since the 1860s.

Jesuitenkirche

The last major church I stopped by was the Jesuitenkirche.  It is a beautiful Catholic church and there was a choir rehearsing inside for a free concert that was going to be held the next day.  I unfortunately wasn't going to be back in time to go to it.  But the little bit of of one song that I hear, sounded great!

Archway at Luzern Railway Station

I chose to bypass THE bridge and make my way down to the rail station, where out front of it is a large archway.  The arch stood as an entrance into the rail station from 1896, until a fire burned down the station in 1971.  The fire was so massive that the domed roof collapsed.  They rebuilt the station and kept the archway out front of the new one as a sort of welcome to the city.

Kapellbrucke

To end my tour of the city, I made my way to the famed Kapellbrucke.  There is a decent chance that you've seen a picture of this bridge before.  The bridge and water tower have graced the Reuss River since 1360.  It has changed a bit over the years, being shortened, but eventually ended up in its current form.  And then in 1993, tragedy struck when the bridge caught fire.  Most of the bridge was burned down with just small sections of it remaining.  But it being such a historic part of their city, it was rebuilt in 8 months.  They kept some of the charred beams in place as recognition to what had happened.  Like the Speruerbrucke, it had paintings up in the trusses.  Some of those have been restored, while others are still blackened from the fire.  And some look fine because they weren't on the bridge when the fire occurred.  They had been removed during one of the bridge's remodels in the centuries before, but the paintings had been kept, so those ones are no on the bridge.

Kapellbrucke

Day two of Luzern mostly didn't actually take place in Luzern.  Instead it took place at Mt Pilatus (Pih-lah-toos).  Pilatus isn't actually a single mountain, but a group of mountain peaks that sticks up above Lake Luzern.  You have a couple of options to get to the top of the mountain, but if you want the full experience, you go with the Golden Round Trip.  This involves a bus ride, a gondola ride, a cable car ride, a cog rail ride, and a boat ride.  You can experience them in this order, or backwards.  There was also a short walk of a couple hundred meters between the bus and the gondola.  Pilatus is a name I was already familiar with because it is the name of a Swiss aircraft company...literally within view of Pilatus (the mountain).  

Cable Car at Pilatus

Pilatus rises about 2000 ft from the lake, or roughly 7000 ft asl.  It also has a huge dragon myth behind it.  Something about a dragon living on Pilatus and it protecting a sacred rock with healing powers.  But anyways, up at the top are two hotels and two restaurants, along with a visitor center.  There are also trails to the top of a few of the peaks up there.  From the panorama deck of the visitor center you can see beautiful views of the lake in one direction and the big Alps in the other direction.  On clear days you can see Jungfraujoch and the Eiger.  

On the cable car ride up I saw a small chapel on a ridge and people hiking up to it.  I wasn't sure I wanted to hike up to it, but it turns out you could hike down to it (and then back up).  From the top, I think it is a shorter trip than from the bottom.  I mean, I had already paid for the cable car ride up, right?  So I might as well use it.  The hike was a bit of a struggle.  Probably 1) because I had gotten almost no sleep during the night 2) I was running on Coke (I needed the caffeine) and a roll.  Not ideal.  Kinda dumb.  But I had decided I was waiting to eat until I got down there.  

View of the chapel from the cable car on the way up.

The trail wasn't an easy one.  Rocky.  But the views were great and I could hear cowbells, though I never placed where the cows actually were.  I made it down to the chapel, and set myself down for lunch.  My lunch was bread and cheese.  Standard Swiss fare.

View from lunch at the chapel.

After the trip back up I had some time to spare because I had a ticket down for 3:35, so I climbed to the top of another peak I hadn't been to and then sat down in a beach chair, in the shade.  Everyone else was in the sun, but I know what color my skin is, so I sat in the shade.

Fun fact, I found out my family has a mountain in the Swiss Alps.  One called Furststein.

The ol' family mountain, which I will observe from a distance.

When my time came, I boarded the steepest cog in the world to head back down.  The cog reaches 48% grade at times.  The views were great on the way down.  

After the cog was the boat ride.  The boat stopped a couple of times along the way at other stops, before ending up back in Luzern.

I grabbed dessert on my way back from the harbor to my hotel.  I had scoped out the strawberry cake the day before, but wasn't hungry for it.  I had said, "I'll come back for you later."  After getting back to the hotel, it was time for a refreshing shower, which included showering with my hiking shirt on. Sometimes you have to be creative with washing.  So I soaped it up really good and washed it off, then took it off and did the inside.  I also soaped up my bra and did the same.  It works out well since they're quick dry materials.  I will do a proper washing at some point, but if I can, I'll push it off as long as possible.  Maybe eventually I won't even need to.  I've slowly acquired a bunch of wool shirts which are great for traveling because they don't absorb bad odors.

Anyways, off to Gimmelwald next!

Switzerland Alpenventure: Zurich

 Welcome to my Alpenventure!  2 1/2 weeks in Switzerland!  The land of my forefathers!  At least some of them...however, I don't have time to venture to where they're from.  What can I say?  The mountains are calling.  I'll have to save that for another time, just like I had to save the Glacier Express for another time.

For what feels like the first time in a long time, my flying journey worked out according to plan!  No delay or anything!  Thank goodness!  It was especially daunting when I was trying to look up what plane I would be on, only to find out that the Monday Swiss 9 flight had an unexpected detour via the Azores after a chemical smell on the plane during their flight.  My flight did not have any issues.  Whew!  When I booked my flight, I splurged and booked an economy plus seat for the way over.  Shoot, I'm not sure I can go back!  My seat was essentially a domestic first class seat, with further reclining and a footrest.  I still didn't get any sleep, but I was more comfortable at least.  

When I arrived in Zurich, customs was a bit of a mess.  Europe is still working through getting their new electronic passport stuff working.  I stood in line for the regular passport control and realized that was going nowhere, so I skipped that line and went over to the electronic passport control machines.  I honestly wasn't sure if it worked or not because it kind of felt like it didn't.  I was then put in a separate line and about an hour after getting into line, I was through.  I don't know why this is being so difficult as I've been through electronic systems in New Zealand and Aruba and they have worked just fine.

After getting out Customs, I headed to the attached train station (as all airports should have!).  I booked a ticket into the city and waited for the train to arrive about 15 mins later.  I got to the city and walked the 8 blocks (at least that's what Google said) to the hostel I'm staying in in Zurich.  During that time I worked up a sweat as I'm rocking a larger backpack on the back and a smaller one on the front, and it was hot!  Like mid-80s hot.  Zurich has been going through a hot/dry spell.  I got to my hostel about an hour before check-in and just waited around.

Limmat River from Lindenhof

After getting settled (and cleaned up a bit), I set out to wander old city Zurich.  I'm right in the middle of it, just about 2 blocks from Wasserkirche and the Munsterbruke (Minister/Cathedral Bridge as Fraumunster and Grossmunster are on opposite sides).  I crossed the bridge and mostly just wandered.  I went up to Lindenhof and up towards the train station.  I got myself some gelato because it was hot.

The old city moat and pathway.

  I then made my way to the city's old moat, Schanzengruben.  I learned about this from a YouTuber (Daniel Steiner) I follow and his video Zurich's Map: Explained.  Once upon a time, like many European cities, Zurich had a wall surrounding it.  It also had a moat on one side.  That moat is still in existence.  If you look at Zurich on Google Maps, you'll see a zigzag stream west of the Limmat River.  For a segment of that moat, there is a nice walkway, with plenty of rocks at the edge to sit on and put your feet in the water.  It was so refreshing.  I also got a nice little foot cleansing by the fish eating at my foot skin.  Eventually I put my shoes back on and started to slowly wander my way back to the other side of the river and in search of food.  I got some pasta at a place not too far from my hostel and went back to the hotel to crash.

Archaeological Windows Maps

I woke up this morning, and forced myself to get out of bed, though I felt I probably could sleep a bit more.  I had to get a key to the city before other people got all of them!  That is something else I learned from Daniel Steiner's video; the city of Zurich has this thing called Archaeological Windows.  Some of the "windows" anyone could find if they knew what they were looking for.  Others you have to have a literal key to get into.  These "windows" are a glimpse into Zurich's past, as a city that has existed since in its current form since the 800s, and was a site for previous civilizations going back to 2000 BCE.  I was given a sort of treasure hunt map with the sites roughly labeled and I had to search for them in the areas mentioned on the map.  

Ruins of an old Roman Bathhouse under the walkway.

The first one I came to was in what was essentially a 4 foot wide walkway.  Once upon a time, there stood a Roman bathhouse on that site.  There were signs on the wall explaining the site and how Roman bathhouses worked.

The rather unassuming door into one of the "'windows".

From there I headed to a parking garage, where they found some items and then I crossed the river to the Zentralbibliothek (library).  The library was built right on what was once the edge of town, right next to the city wall.  As they were doing work on the library they uncovered a section of the old wall(s) and preserved it, so now with a key, you can make your way down there and read all about the old city wall.

Old city wall found during library remodeling and construction.

Up next I headed to an old house where a panorama of the old city is located in the first floor of the City Archives at Haus Zum Rech.  There you can see what the city once looked like.  There is some history on some of the old houses in the city.  One of which dates back to 1200 CE!  And it is still standing!

As I was on this journey, I was also on a chocolate journey.  I told myself I was going to visit every chocolate shop I passed.  I missed 2 because they weren't open yet, but I think I went into the rest that I found.  I had 2 hot chocolates today and a handful of chocolate...not bad for a day of vacation.  I was the only person in the shop Conditorei Schober Chocolate, so I talked with the lady there for a bit.  Things she had to share: too many people think they can spend a few days in Switzerland on a trip to multiple countries and it is not enough; it has been hot and dry this year and Lake Zurich is down about 50cm, which is affecting transport on the river; Trump doesn't care enough about the climate and how people can do things to protect it; Trump looked like an idiot sneaking away on a cart to get off an airplane and then leaving the rest of his people on it; that Zermatt is too commercial these days and not worth a visit (too bad, I'm going); her husband is a civil engineer who once worked on a bridge in Berlin and a museum there where they had to figure out how to mount an airplane outside in the air, but not damage it; and more.

After my first hot chocolate of the day, I wandered to Fraumunster and went inside.  Most of the churches in Switzerland were Protestant Reformed when that happened so all the Catholic decorations were taken out and they were made much more plain.  But this one does have some cool painted windows by Marc Chagall, which he did in his 80s and 90s.

Chagall Windows at Fraumunster

Rear Rose Window and Organ

At the Wasserkirche right on the edge of the Limmat was another "window".  In the basement of the church you could see the many ruins of previous churches on the site.  There are at least 3 other foundations down there.  They marked them where they could so you could tell which belonged to which time period.

Ruins under the Wasserkirche

One of my last places I visited with my Archaeological Windows key was an alleyway.  A very small alleyway, that was once a sewer ditch between buildings where people long ago deposit their bodily functions to be collected and used as fertilizer.  Eventually sanitation got to the city and they built some early sewer systems, which eventually evolved into today's sewer systems.  The best part about this "window" was at one end you went through a bigger (yet still rather small) door, and then you walked the length of the block to come out an even smaller door only 40cm wide.  When you pop out the other end where no one is expecting anyone to come out of, they give you odd looks!

Old sewer ditch of Zurich

After turning my key back in I made my way to another chocolate shop for another hot chocolate, and then went to get a late lunch, which ended up being a bratwurst and fries.  Tomorrow I might actually try to eat more real food other than various types of chocolate (cordial, bar, hot, gelato).

After 8 hours and 8+ miles of walking, and still not being fully recovered from jetlag, I'm exhausted.  I feel I have done Zurich and will be fine with moving onto Luzern/Lucerne tomorrow.

Rainbows over Zurich.  The one just to the left of the short pink building is the one that dates back to 1200.

New Zealand Middle Earth Epic: There And Back Again (A Traveler's Tale)

I've been back home for two weeks now and have had the opportunity to share my trip with friends and kind of debrief on things.  So here are my thoughts on the trip overall and what I might have done differently or not.

First of all, if you want to travel the whole of the two islands, I would say you want 6-8 weeks minimum.  I was there for 6 weeks and felt that another 1-2 would have given me the opportunity to stay in some places a bit longer, and perhaps seen some of the places I had to bypass because I just didn't have time.  If you're only going for 2 or 3 weeks, I would highly recommend just picking an island and staying there.  Or at minimum, visit Hobbiton and and then fly down to the South Island if that is your island of choice.  

If you want to go hiking, do the South Island.  There is hiking on the North Island, but there is so many more options on the South Island.  The South Island is more mountainous so they're going to be a different sort of trail than you find on the North Island.

My favorite places (in no particular order):

• Hobbiton (North Island)
• Giant Sand Dunes (North Island)
• Poor Knights Island for Scuba Diving (North Island)
• Picton to Farewell Spit (South Island)
• Area around Wanaka (South Island)
• Area around Queenstown (South Island)
• Mount Cook/Aoraki National Park (South Island)
• The Catlin Region along the south-southeast coast (South Island)
• Oamaru Penguin Colony (South Island)
• Doubtful Sound (South Island)

If you are a Lord of the Rings fan I would pick up a copy of The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook (I bought my at Hobbiton).  It was completely worth it. Pictures, maps, details about where to look.  If you do want to visit filming locations, I would recommend Hobbiton, Weta Workshop Wellington on the North Island, and the filming locations near Wellington on the North Island.  And then on the South Island head to Queenstown and book a tour through Pure Glenorchy and Southern Trails LOTR Trails.  Our tour guides were true LOTR nerds who know their books and movies and are giving tours because they are fans themselves.  They had photos of the scenes from the films so you could literally look at the scene and look at what was in front of you.  And then take a day to head down to Lake Mavora.  

Make sure to fit some time into your schedule to rest here and there.  That is part of the reason I wish I had had another week.  It would have given me time to have a down day here or there.  If I could have, I would have taken another 1-2 days at Mount Cook NP.  I didn't have a chance to stop at Lake Tekapo.  They say it is a fantastic place for stargazing and I never had the opportunity because I didn't have time.  I also would have spent another day up in the Bay of Islands area, I think.  And I would have totally done another day of diving at Poor Knights Island.

In hindsight I would have skipped out on scuba diving at Kaikoura on the South Island, though the town is worth a visit for its seal colony.  I probably would have bypassed Christchurch and the Akaroa peninsula as well.  I'm still debating whether the Coromandel Peninsula was worth the trip up there or not.  Cathedral Cove was a neat stop and by that point you're most of the way up the peninsula anyway, so I suppose you might as well keep going.

One big recommendation I have is get going early.  I can't say if it was because I was up there post-Christmas or if it is always like that, but on the north tip of the North Island it wasn't too crowded at 8am, but by 10am it was starting to get busy, and I was told it was insane by 1pm.  

I'm glad I made the decision to rent a car and not a campervan for this trip.  Part of that is due to the length of my trip.  I don't think I could have made it 6 weeks in a camper van.  I liked having room to stretch out at a hotel.  But also, the vans in NZ were a lot larger than the ones in Iceland.  And in NZ you're dealing with a lot of narrow roads with one lane bridges and twists and turns.  Gas was about $2.70NZD/liter, so roughly $6.00/gal.  When looking for gas, look for an NPD, Waitomo, or Gull.  They are your cheapest gas and usually found at unmanned stations.  I ended up driving somewhere around 4500 miles and spent nearly $800 on gas.

Most towns have free public toilets that are actually pretty nice.  They're usually stocked and clean.  Just look for a blue bathroom sign in on the road through town and it'll point you there.

Your grocery stores are Pak'NSave, Woolworths, and New Market.  Warehouse is like a Walmart with just the general merchandise.  Look for Chemist Warehouse for everything from shampoo to sunscreen to bug bite cream.  Overall the food was good and cheap compared to American food.

New Zealand loves their meat pies.  Imagine a 4" little pie filled with steak or chicken.  They're filling and cheap and available at pretty much any cafe, bakery, or manned gas station.

The flight there is long; 12-13 hours from LAX to Auckland.  I flew on Air New Zealand specifically because they have a Skycouch option, where you can pay to get all three seats together to make a bed.  The Skycouch option is available for 1, 2, or 3 people.  If you have 3 people you can still make the bed, but you're not going to have much space.  But with 1 or 2 people, it makes for an opportunity to lie down.  

The hotels along the way are usually quite nice.  You don't find much in the way of chains.  A lot of the hotels are 10-15 room motels owned by a family that lives there.  In most cases I found them nicer than American chain hotels.  If you're willing to share a bathroom with others, you can find a lot of cheaper alternatives in the form of hostels (with private rooms or dorms) or what I'd call guesthouses with a private room and shared facility.  I think probably 90% of the places I stayed had a place I could cook food, either in a shared kitchen or in my hotel room on a stove.  I stayed at 3 AirBNB's along the way in places where hotels were hard to find.  I booked most of my stays 0-5 days out.  The best hotel I stayed in was Aura Accommodations in Rotorua, but there were many places I stayed that were fantastic!

Sorry this is all really random.  It is just my thoughts as I think through the ins and outs of my trip.

Remember, there is a good chance you either won't ever be back again, or it may be a while, so if you see something that looks interesting, visit.  I totally splurged on my Tasman Glacier Helicopter-Hike and I'm so glad I did because while I didn't enjoy the helicopter ride, the views from the glacier were amazing.

When you're looking at place names, the WH sound in Maori sounds more like an F, so Whangarei is Fahnguhray.  That also means when you're listening to the radio on the South Island around Nelson and you think you hear someone saying Fuck-It-Too, they're actually saying Whakatu.

Overall I felt that the South Island was a bit more laid back and the people nicer than on the North Island, but overall, the people are pleasant and ready to have a conversation.  New Zealand was full of wonderful people.  

New Zealand Middle Earth Epic: The Last Stage

 My last few days in Auckland were spent lazing around.  Well, not quite, but there was a lot of laying around and not doing much.

On New Year's Day, I got up not as late as I would have liked because of that darn summer sun, even with blackout curtains...they just didn't block the sun from shining around the windows.  I booked a ticket on the 10:30 ferry to Rangitoto Island to spend a few hours hiking.

Leaving Auckland on the Ferry.  The red NZ flag is used for non-military maritime.

Rangitoto is a volcanic island in the middle of the gulf just outside of Auckland.  The ferry ride took about 25 minutes from the city center.  It doesn't have any permanent population and is purely a day trip place with 3 ferries a day there, and 3 back.  There is a trail from the ferry dock to the summit of the island, from whence you can see into the crater of the volcano and across the gulf to Auckland and surrounding areas.  The volcano last erupted around 600 years ago and has been dormant since then.  And they don't really expect it to erupt again.  

Lava fields on Rangitoto

As you hiked up, there were jagged lava fields all around you.  At lower elevations there were more lava fields and fewer forests, but as you moved up in elevation you found yourself around a forest.  Signage along the way said that initially mosses and lichens would start growing and as they lived and then died, they would create a soil with nutrients, and then smaller brush would grow, and eventually enough soil was built up that trees would start growing.  Drawings from 200 years ago, show almost no plant-life or trees on the upper part of the cone, but now it is covered in trees, so it is kind of neat to see that sort of evolution of plants on a volcanic island.

Rangitoto volcanic crater

After taking the ferry back, I was shot.  I went back to my hotel and didn't leave again that night.  I had a gourmet supper of FastMac, chocolate, and wine (a New Year's gift from the hotel...probably a pretty cheap wine).  

Auckland Domain

The next morning I got up and wandered over to a couple of parks.  First Auckland Domain, and then to Albert Park.  Auckland Domain is sort of like a Central Park.  It has large, lush grassy areas, some gardens, a duck pond, some sports fields, a cafe restaurant, and a museum.  They were setting up for some sort of tennis tournament set to start on the 5th.  It was right next to the Bowling Club.  So many towns I went through had signs for the Bowling Club and I had no idea what they were talking about.  Turns out it is lawn bowling.  I guess bowling, along with cricket and rugby, is something the US missed out on by declaring independence too soon from Britain.  Cricket and rugby are king in NZ.

Wintergarden at Auckland Domain

I had an amazing breakfast at the cafe in the park before wandering around.  I sat and read some, here and there.  I eventually made it to the Winter garden.  Two glass houses with plants in them (one with a pond), and an outdoor area connecting the two, with a large pond and statues.  Off to one side was a fernery, which was full of ferns and palms.

Wintergarden at Auckland Domain

I made my way back toward the hotel via Albert Park.  I didn't stay long in Albert Park before heading back to the hotel.  It rained off and on in the evening before a super hard rain finally it.  I had the sliding glass door open in my hotel room and listened/watched the rain come down.

Then came the last day.  I made the most of my morning at the hotel before checking out.  I stored my luggage at the hotel and wandered around the viaduct for one last time before collecting my things and heading to the airport.  The rain that had been threatening all morning finally hit just outside the airport.

Anyone looking for a sailboat?

Checking in and everything for my flight seemed fine.  My bag was .2kg over the limit, but she said it was fine.  I'm coming home with honey and hot chocolate mix that I purchased at various places, otherwise I would totally have been in the clear.  Then the time to load our flight came and went.  We wait, and then finally they said that there was a maintenance item still being worked on.  Finally that was taken care of and we got everyone onboard and pushed back about 70 minutes late.  Finally!  And then we sit there and sit there and then they come on over the sound system and say that we are going to have to go back to the terminal due to a medical issue onboard.  NOOOOO!!!  My connection was already tight.  If everything happened as planned, I would have 2h and 40m in LAX before boarding my flight to Denver.  Instead, we didn't get airboard until about 2 hrs after our original departure time.  There's no way you can make up 2 hours.  

With about 3 hours left in our flight, a flight attendant started making his way around talking to people with tight connections or those who had been rebooked on later flights.  I was one of those who was booked on a later flight, which rather screwed things up.  My new flight wasn't going to get to Denver until after 10pm, which meant I definitely wasn't making my 9pm flight to Wichita.  That flight had been booked separately so I had to rebook that one too.

Upon arrival in LA, I got off the plane and headed to Customs, which was easy and smooth and I was through in probably about 5 minutes.  While I was waiting in line, in another zigzag of it, I looked up and recognized the actor Utkarsh Ambudkar.  I know him best from Pitch Perfect and Free Guy, but he is also one of the stars of the TV show Ghost.  After doing the ridiculous pick-up-your-bag-to-drop-it-off 100 yards away rigmarole, I stopped by a special counter to officially do my "interview" for Global Entry.  This "interview" involved me telling them what I did for a job and being fingerprinted.  I had applied for it last fall and got accepted then, but this interview has to happen in person at certain airports across the country or upon arrival at certain airports.  The closest place to Wichita is Kansas City, but it seemed ridiculous to go up there on a day off just to do that, so I waited until I got back to LAX for it.

Not me stalking Utkarsh Ambudkar from across baggage claim.

Then I had the joy of trying to get to my gate.  LAX is the worst airport I have ever been to.  The signage is terrible and moving from one terminal to the next is just as bad.  I was so confused because after being dumped outside security at the international terminal I knew I had to get to Terminal 7, which is the United terminal.  Signs inside the International terminal say "Terminal 4-7 -->", but if you follow them, you end up at a wall.  Turns out, you have to exit the building.  There is literally no way to move between them inside.  And of course it was rainy outside, so that was cool.  I got to walk in the rain down to Terminal 7, where I had to pick up my new boarding pass and figure out what was going to happen to my luggage since it had been checked through, but still had tags for my old flight.  I was told it would probably get put onto the next flight to Denver and likely beat me there (it did and was actually kinda convenient because I didn't have to wait for it at the baggage carousel).  Next I had to wait for my flight.

As I was waiting I was thinking through things, figuring out what I was going to do for sleep.  It seemed ridiculous to pay $120 for a room at a nearby hotel because I figured it would probably be 11pm by the time I got to the hotel, and I would be getting up around 2:30am to head back to the airport for my 5:15am flight.  That meant crashing somewhere at the airport in Denver.  I wandered around for a while looking for a spot.  It was rather unfortunate that I was stuck landside because I know the new portion of the Terminal C has some fantastic areas for sleep.  But because my suitcase was landside and I was switching airlines, I had to go out of the secured area.  After wandering around for a bit, and not finding anywhere comfortable to lay down on a padded chair (they had metal armrest preventing sleeping comfort), I ended up at the carpeted area near Baggage Carousel 4 along the wall (so next time you're there, imagine me being curled up under a blanket against that wall).  Now the floor isn't exactly comfortable and despite the fact that things slow down at Denver late at night, they never actually shutdown.  After midnight there were still bags coming in about every 20-30 minutes.  I rested and came close to losing consciousness, but never actually slept slept.  I did dream once about some baby kiwi that looked more like fuzzy platypus mouthed birds, but I could still hear baggage carousels around me. At 3:15am, my alarm went off.  I reshuffled stuff between suitcase and backpack so I could get my bag under 50lbs and went upstairs to check in (bag came in at 49.7 lbs).  

My flight home went via St. Louis (not my favorite option, but the only direct on Southwest was at 9pm that night and direct flights on United and AA were either late or $700).  There were a whole 28 people on my flight to STL, so that meant I was able to lay down and actually sleep a bit.  From STL, I flew home to Wichita and my friend Diana came to pick me up!  I was home!  I promptly went to sleep and slept for 5 hours before waking up, going to get some food, and then to Dillons for groceries (I was originally going to go on a Walmart run too, but I decided I was too tired for that).  When I got back home it was off to bed.  The good news was after texting my boss from LAX, I had Monday off so I could get settled a bit more, which was a good thing as I slept from about 9:30pm to 1:30am, then 5:30am to 9:30am, and then from 10:30am to 12:30pm.  It was a great trip, and with one last post to come, I'll be wrapping things up!