After FINALLY getting my new passport on Thursday afternoon, my people took me to JFK airport on Saturday afternoon, where I met my friend and traveling companion, Leah. (We used to work together, back in 2000 and '01, and then for a few years after that, Leah was roommates in NYC with our other former coworker Jen, who we're about to visit in New Zealand, until Jen married Paul and they headed out to NZ in 2005. OK, now you're up to speed in case you don't know who any of these people are.)Once at LAX we changed terminals and arrived in what seemed like another country. The international terminal, which seemed to mainly serve people headed to Australia, New Zealand and China, was just about the most backwards thing I have ever seen and I can't believe it was actually in the U.S. Long story short: the guy at the Air Pacific counter told us to make sure that after we brought all our checked baggage over to the X-ray screeners (note that we needed to do this task ourselves), we watch to make sure the airport guys bring it back to Air Pacific ("Fiji's International Airline") to make sure it "doesn't go to China" (presumably to China Airways, the other major carrier in that area of the terminal).
Things got much better once we got on our Air Pacific flight. The female staff are all wearing flowers in their hair and they're playing relaxing, tropical Fijian music. There are plenty of empty seats to allow everyone to spread out, there are options for TV and movies on the little screen in front of me, and they are serving a delicious hot meal and are offering free glasses of wine.
This is going to be a good trip.
