The plane ride (first half)

So the first connection from Columbus to Houston got in late it was a pretty turbulent flight and there was a huge wave of storms right in our path, along with the fact that we were in a tiny regional jet. 

So we get off the first plane and literally run to the second fate which is in a whole different terminal and make it. 

Second place from Houston to lax is a lot  bigger, still some storms but not nearly as turbulent and the first jet. 

Then we get to lax on time around 4 pm Los Angeles time... And the fun begins. 

Lax is one of the crappiest airports I have been to!!! 

It is a huge airport and there are multiple terminals just because of the sheer amount of flights that it needs to accommodate but oh man! It is confusing to get around and there is little to no signs. 

Case in point is the fact that we got off the plane in terminal 8 (see picture 1) 

And the flight to Auckland shows up in the departure board of the United terminal in terminal 8 with the time and the letters "TBIT" 

So Karen and I look at each other and think "huh! Must be leaving from this terminal?! Kinda weird but we don't know what TBIT means, maybe "to be determined" or "to be informed tonight" (because we did get there 4 hours before the flight) 

So we go grab dinner, we walked from terminal 8 20 minutes down to terminal 5 to get to a Starbucks and go to a Iron chef restauraunt. 

So while down at terminal 5 we ask some airport gate  employees, "hey we saw this departure to Auckland on the United board, but not on the delta or american airways board? Oh and by the way it is an international flight, so do we need to go to the international terminal?" 

Airport employee: "if it shows up on the United board it should be flying out of that terminal, you guys are still early, I would bet it just needs to be assigned the closer it is to the the flight time, besides to go to the international terminal  you will have to walk outside of security and go through security again. 

Ok, wow, going through security again doesn't seem to make sense, let's walk back to terminal 8. 

So we walk back 20 minutes to terminal 8 and look again and it still says TBIT. At this point we are 2 1/2 hours ahead and we decide to ask one of the United agents and they tell us "TBIT" stands for Tom Bradley International terminal" and yes you do have to walk back down to terminal 5 and go through security again" 

Ok so we walk down to terminal 5 again, and keep on walking and walking and walking. We had to constantly ask for direction because there were simply no signs for the international terminal. 

Literally as we were heading out terminal 5 we saw this sign (picture 2)... And that was the only sign! 

Not so bad for us, because we could read and speak English, but seeing as how it is an international terminal I feel bad for the scores of lost non english speakers who couldn't find it.

So we walk out and do have to go through security again and get to the air New Zealand gate! Whoo hoo! We can relax and kick back! 

Not so fast!!! 

We are informed that we can only have 15 pounds in our carry on luggage! 

Our carry ons easily weigh 35 pounds each. 

So we have to check our one carry on with the camera in it and have to buy a canvas tote bag and split up the remainder of the backpack which probably looked hilarious because we were "those people" with the contents of our life strewn over the terminal floor. 

The gate agent was 6 kinds of awesome and did help us a lot, especially with Karen Australian visa. 

So all of that behind us we finally got on the plane so to summarize 

Lax: confusing and poor signage

Air New Zealand and staff: awesome! 

Karen's two cents:

What did we learn?

1. Make sure your carry on weighs less than 15 lbs

2. Lax is terrible and be sure you know where your going or your going to have a rough time

3.  Air bee Zealand was great to fly on

Picture 1

Picture 2