So here I am at Denver International Airport waiting for my first of 4 flights that will eventually get me to Antarctica. There are about 100 of people from all over the United States deploying at the same time. Our journeys may start all over the U.S., but we all end up in Los Angeles and take the same flight to Auckland, New Zealand together. It will be a long, long, long, long flight, and I'll tell you exactly how long shortly. But first, I used the word deploying a few sentences ago, does anyone have a parent or family member in the military? If you do, you may have heard that word before and maybe you can help your classmates learn what it means!
OK, so as far as this time travel (not really) thing goes, today is August 23rd, and I will arrive in New Zealand on August 25th. I leave Denver at 4:20 PM Mountain Time (GMT -6) on August 23rd, 2011, and I will arrive in Auckland, New Zealand (GMT +12) at approximately 8:00 AM on August 25th. My flights will go as follows:
8/23/2011 - 4:20 PM Denver to Los Angeles (L.A.), CA - 2 hour flight then a 6 hour layover in L.A. - Yowza! I am very thankful to whoever invented the Tablet PC!
8/23/2011 - 11:40 PM L.A. to Auckland, NZ - 13 hour flight -that sure is a lot of time to sleep, read, and watch movies, then sleep, then read, then watch more movies, hijole!
8/25/2011 - 8:10 AM Arrive Auckland, NZ then I have another short flight to Christchurch, where I will get ready to go to Antarctica for real! But that will be a blog entry for a different day.
So what in the heck will happen to August 24th?
I'll tell you what, it won't exist for any of us on that flight! Earlier I said "GMT - 6 and GMT +12", remember? GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time. Some of you may be wondering, can time be mean? Some say time is cruel, but that's really something entirely different. Do you think mean might mean something else? Oh no! How many things can that word mean? But I digress...you can learn all about GMT and the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Mean_Time and I'll let you send me your thoughts on the subject of August 24th and what missing it could mean for me. If someone's birthday is on August 24th, will they still be a year older?
OK, time to board my first flight to Los Angeles, next time I blog, I'll be a day ahead of you and in a very, very, very beautiful place, New Zealand!
Woo hoo!
Dear Joni,
ReplyDeleteThis is Mrs. Boin's class. We are a little confused about you missing August 24th, but we promise that we are having August 24th here and it's today! Land safely!
Love,
Us
Hello Mrs. Boin's class! Apologies for my delay in responding, I've been busy in Christchurch getting ready for Antarctica! I can understand your confusion about August 24th, have you had a chance to research the international date line and the prime meridian yet?
ReplyDeleteHave any of you ever travelled to the east or west coast (maybe you have family in California or New York, for example) where the time zone is different? If so, you or your parents may have had to change your watch when you landed. Well crossing the international date line is just like that only the time difference is much bigger.
Today is Friday in New Zealand, but it is still Thursday in the United States. So we had to set our clocks so far ahead that we went right past midnight and into the next day!
What specific questions do you have about time zones? I may not have the answers, but we can research and learn together!