June 28th (the first): SYD

Once more, I imagine a world – a world where internet is free and plentiful. Even if it's just slow, e-mail only, access. Let people who want to stream movies or download en mass pay – that's fine, but airports – if you're sneaking 25 dollar departure taxes into your ticket prices, just add another buck or so, and let me surf the wifi. If everyone pays it, only a few use it, it'll all work out. A few cents here and there that's all.

The cool airports give me free access.

So, indeed, here I now sit in Sydney airport. I look at my wallet and see that I have a few bucks left, they'll be no good (except for showing people how you just can not rip Aussie money in half) outside of this hall. Food, prizes, magazines, books, they're all available to me. I'm thinking magazine, but which one? Mind you – food is good too. There's just no way I can think about that yet though, not when I have twenty KG to lug around on my back.

As always I arrived early. No sense hanging out in town, when you can hang out in the 'port. But this means I can not check in. My luggage is my albatross for the time being.

When H10 – 18 manage to get themselves in action, then I'll figure out how to drop my cash.

So yes, here I sit. Last night I went to sleep at one, so I could wake up at nine. I woke up at two fully rested, feeling as if I'd over slept. It's weird how my body does not let me miss a flight, even if that means I will be woken up every hour until morning.

When I finally do get up, I toss everything into my pack, cross my fingers and hope I've not forgotten anything, head downstairs, check out, remember I need to get my sheets from the room, go up, come down, and done.

Breakfast is that kangaroo kabab I felt I should have had the night before. It's good – but not as good as the beef one. It's no wonder that Aussies don't really eat the meat, leaving it mostly for the tourists.

I play over my eavesdropped conversations from last night – four girls talking about how great Twilight is. And how they watched a special on Vampires the night before, 'real vampires'. The type who actually drink blood, and dress all wonky like. They joked about how they weren't 'FOR REAL' vampires though, because if they were, and they walked out during the day they would – wait for it, wait for it – sparkle in the sun, and how funny would that be.

Dammit! Dammit Twilight! I know you've taken over, but I thought that people still understood that Twilight vampires were silly little things that were to be mocked. I felt people still thought of Vampires as beings that burst into flame in the sun. But no, these girls have no concept of vampires, or their mythological importance, dating back any further than three years ago. I swear, before I die, someone is going to remake Dracula where he shines and sparkles, and acts like a pedophile towards sixteen year old girls – and I will not be held responsible for my actions! On record, right now.

Honestly Edward – for this is your name, as I heard it far too many times last night – why do you hook up with little girls? I'm only 27, and it's hard enough to talk to people, on a real level, who are younger than twenty. Even that's a stretch. If I was 200 years old, I'm thinking that the type of conversation a sixteen year old could provide just wouldn't do it. And let me tell you – girls in their twenties, you creepy vampiric criminal? Also attractive.

Seriously – even Wolverine knows better than to hook up with Kitty Pryde, or Jubilee.

Deep breath – moving on.

I caught the train from the city to the International terminal (15.80) and was momentarily caught up by the ticket machine taking only exact change. I'm not saying it wouldn't give change – I'm saying, it would not let you pay anything but the right price. After a moment of fear, I checked my change and realized that I could make this happen. Why it wouldn't just take my sixteen dollars, and profit a bit is beyond me. There should have been a button to let you do that.

At least I was able to offload one of the ridiculously too large fifty cent pieces. They're the biggest coin I have ever seen in my life. Fact.

Now I'm here, at the airport, just off of Botany Bay.

Botany Bay... Botany Bay?! KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHN!

It had to be said.

I've watched all my movies, I've listened to all my podcasts, I've far too recently cleared Frozen Bubbles, and I'm not in a reading mood when I still have my pack on me. It's a weird little nerves thing. I feel like there's something to be done, and I will not be able to relax until it is done. So what, oh what, do I do until it's time to check in? Right now – 1:20. My flight leaves at 6. In theory, check in may not start until 3, or – fearing – 4. One hour, forty minutes to kill. Curse you Jet Star, and your discount flights. Curse you!

Ahh yes, so my flight – I'll be crossing the date line. For all my travels, this is the first time I'll fly over the Pacific. And weird things happen when you fly over the Pacific. You lose a day, or you gain a day. In my case, I'm getting some time back. I'll be flying out of Sydney at 6pm on June 28th. This is in the future. When I land in Honolulu, it will be 7:30am on June 28th. This is in the past.

As I've never done this, I find trying to make sense of the time zones difficult. I understand that Australia starts the world. They led the fight against the Y2K bug. Front lines! And I know it must end somewhere near Hawaii. So, crossing one line makes 20 plus hours switch around. But, well, time is just such a weird made up, human invention.

I'm sure it will all make perfect sense soon enough, but I just want to know how long my flight is going to be. Good luck trying to figure that out. Well, I leave here, and then I arrive ten hours in the past. Ugh. I think this means it's going to be a long flight, but until someone grabs Marty McFly to come help me out, I'm clueless.

Money to spend: 40 dollars. Ai ya – that's more than I thought. Time to get to it.

5 dollars on a Banana shake from Krispy Kreme, or however they want to spell it

10 dollars on a Hyper magazine (video games, not so well written – but a really good article on IF games. Think text adventures. It's a multipage feature, and pretty rock. The first game I tried to program was a text adventure. If only I knew about variables back then. I also got a December issue of the magazine bundled. You know a mag is good when they're freely handing off their back issues. Ohh well, it keeps me occupied.

5 bucks on a ... Jr. Whopper Stunner. Look – I consider myself blessed to know about these, cause I watched people order Jr. Whopper meals and pay 6.10 for them – whereas if they said the word stunner they would have paid 4.95, and got a free sundae. It's sneaky stuff, it is. They do display an ad for the meal, but it only shows for a moment before flicking away to something else. Tricky, tricky.

So I have four fives left. M'eh, scurviness.

My spell check tried to correct souvenirs in the line above. I dig the results. It stays.

Then I made my way to try and find wifi. There are free terminals, but I had pre-written emails that needed sending. And I was not about to retype them all. You could pay five bucks and hour, and a ten dollar connection fee – but that doesn't seem like good value. Still, I have travelled far too much to not be aware there is always free wifi in an airport if you're willing to look for it.

First up, I tried the lounges – but there were no wifi points coming from within. Then I heard an announcement for a British Airways flight. They like to give off free wifi a lot. Making my way over, I didn't get that far. At gate 30 n Sydney airport there is a NETGEAR hotspot. Connect, surf, enjoy.

With that being said, I'm posting this entry. It will be the first of three June 28th posts. In theory. We'll see how it goes. Maybe just two. It is now 4pm on June 28th (the first). When I land in Hawaii there will be June 28th (the second) starting all over again, from early morning. Then there is the time between now, and when strange things happen in the air, merging the two days together.

Either A.) I will just add that on to this post later. B.) I will write a flash back in the next entry, or C.) I will post a between entry. Which I will justify due to the weird time zoneyness of all between now, and the futurist then, takes place in a void free of time and meaning. Ahh – I like that. I'll probably go with that.