May 14th – Departure and Arrival

It's a strange sensation when you leave one country, fly for god forsaken hours to arrive somewhere across the Pacific ocean only to find yourself living the same day again.
I left Auckland, New Zealand on 14th May early in the morning, arrived in Portland, OR, USA at 3pm on 14th May.
I had 2 layovers to get to Portland. One in Brisbane, Australia, and another in LA.
The flight from Auckland to Australia was brief enough and filled with sporadic napping. Then I had to wait a while to jump onto the next connecting flight to LA via V Australia.
V Australia was really nice. Spacious, well equipped, good service and a lot of things to watch. I was seated next to an Australian/American couple who were hilarious and kept me entertained during the flight.
The woman hadn't watched any movies due to her crazy work hours, so she was having a movie marathon on board without sleeping.
 
Dan was kind enough to travel for 4 hours from La Grande to pick me up from the Portland Airport.
We went to pick up my new macbook, had my first diner experience at the Portland shopping mall (where they come and refill your drinks every 5 minutes). Shortly after the diner food, we went and watched How To Train Your Dragon, which was a perfect way to end the night.
Exhausted, we headed back to our motel and passed out.