Los Angeles Airport

Friends and family,

I am currently sitting in the Los Angeles airport (LAX) waiting for my flight out of the country. I am excited about my first international trip, but not quite as excited about the thirteen hour plane ride to reach my desired destination. We will take-off on Air New Zealand flight number 19 at 10:15 p.m. Pacific Time this evening and arrive in Auckland, NZ tomorrow morning around 11:00 a.m. I plan to sleep on the plane to make the time/date adjustment a bit easier. From Auckland we will board a plane for Christchurch, where we will spend the majority of our time.

There was excitement among our University of Nebraska-Lincoln group this morning in regard to our flight schedules. United Airlines overbooked our flights from Omaha to Los Angeles and this resulted in the group flying via Denver, CO for a connection to Los Angeles. Three of us were unable to fit on the plane out of Omaha and will be arriving in Los Angeles within a couple of hours. Hopefully we all will make it before the international flight departs!

Thank you again to Dad, Michael, and Marshall for accompanying me to Lincoln yesterday during the blizzard. The travel conditions were certainly less than desirable. Thank you to Mom and Mikayla for helping me to pack up a few things prior to leaving. I really appreciate the help of my family (physically and financially) to be able to take this trip. The experience will be outstanding and something I will talk about for years to come.

Take care and look forward to another post from the island of the long white cloud!

Love,

Matt