Palau is Far Away

I left San Francisco after work on Friday and rendezvoused with my dad and brother in Los Angeles [+1 Hour Flight]. We ate out in Hollywood at the 'it-boy' restaurant, Ketchup, and hit up the scene on Sunset before retreating to La Hacienda near LAX to get a little sleep before our 10am flight to Honolulu [+5.5 Hours Flight].

It was mid-afternoon when we landed in Honolulu and without much of a layover we boarded our plane to Guam, alongside a regiment of Guam native's who'd joined up the National Guard and we're heading back to Guam after training in California for eventual deployment in Afghanistan.

It's hard to think that after heading straight West from California for 5 and a half hours there could be a lot more Pacific ocean to cover. 

Its true vastness is hard to fathom.

Somewhere between Honolulu and Guam we crossed the confusing boundary of the International Dateline, wherein we inexplicably went from late afternoon Saturday to late afternoon Sunday.

A Lunestra and a $5 jolt of airplane cabernet later I woke up in Guam, in the future [+7.5 Hours Flight]. It was early evening, and our flight to Palau was delayed 3 hours.

It was around 11pm Sunday when we arrived in Palau [+2 Hours Flight], 16 hours of total flight time and effectively two days into our vacation, separated by 7,670 miles, 9 timezones and 1 calendar day from California.