Leaving on a Jet Plane

In two days I will be embarking on another trip to the United States. While there I will visit California, New Jersey, Oregon, and New Mexico. I will travel on 10 planes, having bought tickets in 7 different transactions. This is not an unusual for a trip to the US for me these days. On my last trip I California, Oregon, Colorado, and New Mexico. Basically work, Ginny, and family. Still, I think you can quite easily measure the amount of time I've spent on planes in the last year in days, if not weeks. I'm beginning to appreciate good flights, fast security lines and the like. This trip will be the first time I ever fly premium economy, which on Quantas is supposed to be pretty awesome. We'll see if I get spoiled.

I'm already looking to buy heaps more tickets. I'm looking into a set of flights in June to go to Exmouth with Whitney and Ted, which will involve 4 flights (round trip Sydney -> Perth, round trip Perth -> Exmouth). Those are really expensive. And then once Ginny is here I want to go all over the place. Cairns, maybe Darwin and Uluru, New Zealand, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, and if I can places outside Australia like Venuatu, Fiji, Japan, etc. I realize New Zealand isn't in Australia though my last sentence makes it seem like it is. I associate it with Australia in terms of my visiting priorities. I'd love to get there in winter for skiing and then again in the summer for more exploring.

Basically, I'm just saying I'm flying a ridiculous amount. I don't know how consultants and the like do it. I'm really starting to value my own bed, and not having to constantly be getting my toiletries and clothes out of small bags. I really wanted to make my next trip as short as possible, yet it still ended up being 3 weeks, and if anything is more stressful because of how quickly I'm going between places. There are a lot of times where I'm not sure how I'm getting to or from the airport, but hopefully I can work it out.

Sadly I've also learned that the sharing of airlines miles is pretty bad. When I fly Quantas but use my American Airlines frequent flyer number, I only get like 1/3rd of the miles flown. That's a pretty crappy alliance if you ask me. Had I known better and consistently flown Quantas from day one, getting one of their frequent flyer cards, I'd be well on my way to some form of elite status and a free round trip to the US.

I've been learning the ins and outs of jet lag and handling it. Coming to Sydney from the US isn't too bad now. This past trip I adjusted fairly quickly. I was waking up at 7am every morning for a few weeks, even if I went to bed late, but most nights that was still a normal amount of sleep. Going from Sydney to the US is a little harder. This upcoming trip is a bit longer because I decide that taking two red eye flights in a row would kill me. Otherwise I could have done a Friday red-eye from Sydney to San Francisco, followed by a Friday red eye from San Francisco to the east coast, with a long layover and some connections on that end, followed by a busy weekend. But since I decided that might kill me I'm going to have a few days in San Francisco first to start to adjust to the US. And it will be nice to see my friends there.

Well, tomorrow night I have karate, so I should use the rest of tonight to actually start packing and getting ready for my trip.

Surcas

Depending on who you talk to you'll hear that Surcas is the Sydney University Recreational Clowing Around Society or the Sydney University Circus Arts Society. Anyway, it's their circus society. And they teamed up with Circusoc, the UNSW circus society to put on R & J, a circus version of Romeo and Juliet, which I went to see last Friday.

I really enjoyed the show. As with ballet or opera, the story was condensed and told mostly through action. There was almost no speaking during the show, except for a recorded voice reading some of the original Romeo and Juliet during transitions. But, as a familiar story (at least to me), it worked well. I could clearly identify the main characters. And interestingly enough Romeo and Juliet were a lesbian couple, adding a new dynamic to the show.

I've always admired displays of skill and coordination, so it was pretty easy to please me during the show. That said, the performers made obvious mistakes a few times. I was impressed however with how smoothly they incorporated the mistakes into the show and kept on going. It never really halted the show. Early on in the show Juliet, played by this woman Jess whom I've met briefly before, did a hula-hoop routine incorporating ballet and doing a fair bit of it en point. That was mind blowing. Later on she had a ciroc dance routine with a fair number of aerial maneuvers that was also fun to watch. There was a lot of partnered juggling. None of the jugglers had crazy solo's with large numbers of balls, but they did a good job coordinating between multiple jugglers and then wrapped up with two pairs of jugglers on different levels passing a fair distance across the stage it looked pretty hot; lots of clubs flying around.

All in all, a fun show, and I enjoyed it more than I expected. With a bit more practice it could become a really stunning show. Sadly with only 3 performances that won't happen this time. But there's always next time. Quite a few of my house mates have been active in the circus society at one point or another so maybe I'll even learn how to do some of this stuff. I'd love to learn some of the stick work, or maybe poi. Just need to not light myself on fire.

It's completely unrelated to this show. But later I came back and looked up some hula-hoop videos on the net, so I'll leave you with a link to this impressive video: http://www.spike.com/video/sexy-hula-hoop-girl/3314628?cmpnid=790&pt=sr&refsite=7118