Day one of my holiday. Dad due at about 1:30 for lunch to take me to the airport. The hours whizzed by way too fast. Dad brought lunch with him. I planned to leave at 2:15 but with last minute things taking longer than expected we left at 2:30 – still we made it to the airport just after 3:00 and check in went relatively fast.

Dad and I walked all over looking for the duty free shop and the bar, but things have totally changed – no more land side duty free and there’s nothing but an observation deck on the top floor – no bar & no museum. Had one beer and said farewell just after 4:00

Customs was a breeze and I got chatty with the lady at the counter and she went into shock! That was it!!!!!! I was free and officially on my way – Oh My God. Extremely excited!

No sign of my plane so went for a walk out to the furtherest gate to take a photo of the Emirates A380 plane. Wandered around a bit more, went to the toilet twice updated Facebook found my plane and went to my gate. Unbelievably we had to queue to get in the gate coz two people were crossing names off a list with a pen and hand checking passports and boarding cards. The wait to board wasn’t too long and then we were off at precisely 6:30 on time.

Seat 63A about 5 rows from the end of the plane – marvellous, there is a spare seat between me and a friendly man from San Francisco. His wife is up in Business Class – he swapped with her as he flies business all the time and this was her first time to come along on a trip with him. Annoyingly she has popped down twice to tell him all about it.

After dinner I watched the movie Happy Feet 2 and fell asleep. Managed to sleep for most of the flight and would still be asleep now if it weren’t for being woken up for breakfast. Only 1.5 hours till we land.

Update: Landed at San Francisco airport on time after a wonderful flight with Air New Zealand. I cleared immigration and customs no problems & quite quickly really, taking my shoes off before going through the X-ray machine was mildly amusing though. I have been finger printed and photographed and it was all kinda fun.

Had plenty of time to wander around the airport before boarding my flight for Vegas (about an hour). Boarded the plane on time – couldn’t believe what these people’s take on the plane with them, people had boxes of pizza with them!!! I think I have discovered where the term Cattle Class comes from, it was a tight squeeze and a packed flight. Anyway we did not take off on time, in fact we had to get off the plane and I now have two hours to kill because they lost the pilots!!! Thank goodness for free WiFi here at the airport.

Managed to phone Amy and tell her the pilots were lost so I would be delayed, there is nowhere at the airport to buy a sim card so had to use my phone and probably pay a million dollars a minute, but oh well it was so cool to phone my friend and tell her I’m in America.

The delay turned out to be four hours, but eventually we got there. My friend Amy met me by a baggage carousel (there were 15 of them) and my bag turned up so the wait is at long last over – I haven’t seen Amy for about 21 years.

We drove straight to the “Strip” got a park in the biggest car park I’ve ever seen and headed for the nearest bar in the Flamingo Hotel. What an awesome feeling – I was finally having a drink with my friend Amy and I was in Las Vegas – WOW!!!

After having a fabulous cocktail and the flashiest nibbly things ever we headed off to Caesars Palace and the Celine Dion shop where I spent up large. Then we strolled around an amazing shopping area called the Forum which had more designer label stores than I’ve imagined possible in one place. Lastly we had dessert in a place called Max Brenner which was in fitting with the Forum – flash and totally designer… A cookie and cream arrived on a huge plate with it’s own little carafe of chocolate sauce. And then Amy drove me back her very cool home in a flash gated community – they even have their own park and shops. We had a beer and then I went to bed finally about 26 hours after leaving home, still buzzing with excitement.

Wow… I popped round for a drink (or two) after work to a friend’s place today, coz I just found out she has a place in the city – right next to work.

We know each other through a mutual friend and meet up every now and then at parties. It’s always fabulous to see her. Thanks to Facebook the last time we ran into each other we managed to get in touch with each other and have been Facebook chatting quite a bit and today she invited me round to her place for a farewell drink before I leave for the States for my big holiday.

When she told me her address I nearly fell off my chair coz the address she gave me was next to my work. I thought I had got it wrong coz I always imagined her living in a wonderful cottage near a beach. But NO she lives on the top floor of a very tall apartment building in the city, not only that but she lives in the penthouse which has this amazing wrap around deck with an almost 360 degree view AND a spa pool. We were so high up I felt like I could just about shake hands with people having dinner in the Sky Tower.

Add to this that tomorrow is my last day of work before my holiday starts and I’m feeling pretty amazing right now… just TWO more sleeps!!!

Oh by the way I have updated the houses project with Sept 69 to Dec 69.

Off to Wellington for 2 days which is quite exciting but as the airplane taxied past the international terminal and I saw an Air New Zealand Jumbo Jet just like the one I’m going on next week, I got so excited I couldn’t stop smiling – what an awesome feeling.

At last the wait is down to single digits, yes it’s only 9 more sleeps and one of those sleeps is in a hotel in Wellington.

Normally when I fly to Wellington I sit on the left side coz the view is of the land as we head south. But the last time I did that the sun was so strong & hot I had to pull down the shade, so this time I thought I would try the other side of the plane and WOW it was awesome. The view was way more interesting as you can see from the photos, plus as we were landing I could see the south island and snow capped mountains which would have made a great photo but by that point we had to have all electronic devices turned off so I couldn’t take a picture. So from now on I’m always going to sit on that side of the plane.

This week I’m in Gisborne and this is the view from the hotel deck this morning. The cool thing about this is that apparently Gisborne is one of the first places in the world to see the sun, so as this is the first view of the sun this morning I could very well be the first person in the world to see the sun. Well that is if you don’t count people who have to go to work before the sun is even up.

Yesterday I received very bad news from America – Celine Dion has strained a vocal chord and has been ordered to have complete voice rest AGAIN, which means cancelled concerts. I am so angry and sad about this terrible news, I have been looking forward to going to the concert for so many years and finally I get to go and it’s only 14 more sleeps till I depart for America to see her.

Of course there will be plenty of other cool stuff to see and do and I’m still very excited about seeing my friends, Vegas, L.A. and San Francisco, but Celine was a pretty big highlight. My friend Amy has sent me some ideas for other concerts we could go to, but that doesn’t seem like a real good idea right now, as anything else will just be a huge disappointment, nothing could come close to a Celine concert in my world.

I got to have lunch with my sister and her kids today and coz they weren’t at my last family birthday lunch I got to have more presents today making this a really long birthday celebration – yay!!!

Now here’s a blast from the past. I went down to the Britomart Centre at lunch time yesterday to spend my $10 gift voucher the fabulous Kikki.K store sent me for my birthday and on my way back, I cut through Fort St and found the White Lady – wow, now that’s a blast from the past. I haven’t seen that thing for years, in fact I had completely forgotten all about it.

I wonder if the food is still as awesome as it used to be back in the 80s when I was a frequent customer there on Friday and Saturday nights.