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Country Details
Quick Facts and Figures  Official Name Kingdom of Tonga
Capital City Nuku'alofa
Languages Tongan, English
Official Currency Pa'anga
Religions Christian, others
Population 106,137 (July 2002 est.)
Land Area 720 sq km (278 sq miles)
Latitude/Longitude 20º 00S, 175º 00W
Current Time and Date in Tonga
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Well we are on our way, the yearly Tyszkowski vacation. Off to the South Pacific. To start off with, the luggage check in went without a hitch, something that has not really happened in the past years. It was sad leaving Taz and Sarah behind, especially since Sarah is getting up there in age. And believe it or not, as usual, Sharon was panic stricken when it finally came time to pack up the final items in the suit case. I'm sure we left many items behind. We left Orlando where it was sunny and extremely hot. When we got to the airport, Sharon and Austin dropped me off to check in and they went to park the jeep. From our past trips we accrued enough miles to upgrade to Business Class which was a treat. I owe this trip to Claudia who over the past year had to put up with me and all my questions.....Claudia over the past 5 years has been wonderful, even heard her get angry, used some cuss words with United...greatly deserved I might add and who helped tremendously in getting Air New Zealand to change the flight number so we could get the upgrade. Thanks Claudia..
What a breeze it was to be treated like a king, very friendly, didn't even weigh the bags, some of the coolers were very heavy, weighed down with water, Dr. Pepper, juice, combo's, fish collecting items, ect. I waited for them once I was finished, teasing Sharon about being crammed up for 20+ hours in those little seats. WOW was she surprised when we sat in Business Class, I think I even saw her blush!! I figure it's only money, right !!!! Might as well go in style.
Austin with his new Game Boy Advance
Austin was also surprised to find a new GAME BOY ADVANCE game and a new MEN IN BLACK game. Of course, he was engulfed in playing with it most of the flight. He also got a pair of head phones and a battery charger to go along with it which should cut the cost of those AA batteries now….....he wears them out fast.
Austin, United Air Lines A320 Airbus
We also bought a new Digital video camera. Figured our old one that we bought when we first got married was in the trash, and why fly all this way without being able to enjoy the memory. Sharon still does not know where we are going. Should I tell her???? We are on our way to LAX and then to Honolulu where we will spend the night before boarding a morning flight to Tonga.
Austin, dinner aboard United Air Lines flight to Hawaii
The flight so far has been uneventful. Had a garden salad and weird meat, cheese, bread, olives, and beets for an appetizer. Austin got a hamburger that was a double decker, would have put Wendy's to shame.
The king is satisfied.....Such Manners!!!!!
Sharon and I got the chicken that was deep fried in batter with melted cheese in it with rice and beans. Great thing to serve on a plane…..Gas for sure. I passed on lunch, Sharon ate half of hers. Austin ate about ½ of the burger, it was so thick he could not get it into his mouth, so I squished it down for him. It actually looked good, but I have to watch those fat grams…... Then, he and Sharon had an ice cream sundae, with hot fudge and whipped cream. So far all I can say about business class is the seats are great, plenty of room, not overly impressed with the food though. Is it worth the money…who knows, but on an 20 hour journey like this why not….We have about another hour before we land at LAX, then have an hour layover and then off we go again. I'm glad we are spending the night and not having to jump on another plane. This will help us adjust to the time difference. But on the way back we fly directly. E gads!!
I read my new book about Giant Clams of the South Pacific, very interesting, learned a lot. I hope to find and bring back some of these exotic clams that are only found in the part of the world where we are going. It seems that this time last year we were already in Samoa, without our luggage. I guess this upgrade will be worth the suffering we all endured last year. Well into our descent into LAX, all of a sudden the engines roared and up we went back into the sky. A dense layer of smog stood above the city. According to the pilot he stated that his airspeed was to fast and that we will have to "TRY AGAIN" as he put it. Great, try again such encouraging words. So as we circled over the Pacific Ocean, made a 360 degree loop and 20 minutes later we are on the ground. A very rough and fast landing. We all held on for dear life. We departed the plane, with all our carry on luggage, lap tops, and went looking for a monitor to see our departure gate. Needless to say, it was directly across from the gate we just arrived on, so back we went, everything in tow. The gate area was packed and we found 5 seats vacant and we soon stretched out on them. The plane was booked solid.
I am glad we are still in business class.
We were delayed in leaving LAX due to an A/C problem on the plane. So we waited, and waited and 30 minutes later we are relaxing in our seats. Not too bad in this 767 aircraft. I am sitting next to Austin again, he is busy playing with his new Game Boy. Sharon is sleeping with her mouth open. To bad I didn't have any pepper….. So we have left the gate and there seems an endless line of planes ahead of us waiting to take off. Long and short, we finally left the ground at 6:00 PM Florida time, 1 hour late. The flight to Hawaii is scheduled for 5 hours and 35 minutes. We have been traveling now for 8 hours and still are not half way there yet. All in good time. We all picked roasted chicken for dinner with carrots and rice. The meal was actually very good. I even had desert. It was a long flight, we watched Broken Arrow, did some game playing with Austin, Sharon sat next to me for a while she was very tired and cranky. What else is new !! Although we all were a little tired. My back was really hurting, I feel very stiff, where is the hot tub!!!. We can start to see the Hawaiian Islands in the far distant, the water looks so choppy. The coral heads are so visible in the water. What a beautiful island to live, very expensive to stay and play...
Purple Lips
The mainland is really starting to show up, Diamond Head, Waikiki Beach, Pearl Harbor and the airport. We seemed to have flown right over it. What a beautiful day. Sunny, the mountains towards the West are covered in a blanket of clouds. Austin and I even saw a submarine leaving Pearl Harbor. We landed safely and taxied to the gate. Departed the plane and walked what seems like miles to baggage claim, which for some reason was at the other end of the airport. We walked outside along the curb, the stiff trade winds as they are called felt nice after being in a plane for the last 14 hours. We called the Best Western Hotel where we will be spending the night to be picked up. Got horrible directions from the Hotel, go to the green curb....where is that !!! Then Sharon disappears…
Great kidnapped in Hawaii…Austin and I stood outside the baggage claim for at least 20 minutes awaiting her return, cussing every word in the book, sitting on the curb, kicking the sidewalk and bushes, ready to ring her neck. Low and behold she comes walking across the street beaming at us, arms whaling, in her infinite wisdom, "I've been waving to you, you were looking right at me!!" I'll stop there.
I must have been so tired from the flight that I didn't see her walk across the street to the green curb. (Not really) We crossed the street and no sooner than a minute had passed then the van pulled up to take us to the hotel. The van ride was short, pulled up to the Best Western, kind of run down, but at this stage, who cares since we leave early in the morning. We checked in, went to our room, 2 double beds, not much…I bought our bathing suits along since we arrived in Hawaii at 4:30 PM, thought it would be a nice treat for Austin. We changed into our suits headed down to the pool…Austin was hesitant about going in, but he soon did, the water was freezing….I swear it had to be in the low 70's, a far cry from out 90 degree pool at home.
Diamond Head, Hawaii
I jumped in and quickly got out……Sharon thought I was a wuss for doing that until she dove in and quickly came to the surface with purple lips. I will give her credit, she stayed in the pool for about 20 minutes with Austin. We decided to get something for dinner and then go to bed. We went down to the hotel restaurant, Sharon had a salad, Austin had a burger, I got broiled chicken. We were all so tired since it is after 1:00 AM at home. We nixed the rest of dinner, went back to the room and sacked out. It's now 8:00 PM. I took a sleeping pill and sacked out only to be woken up at 1:30 AM by a ruckus outside, or I should say Sharon woke me up. I'll let Sharon tell this part of the story since she has rabbit ears. Our hotel happened to be next to Gussies Dance Hall for overactive but under-aged hormonal kids all worked up from dancing. A couple of "Girls" decided to duke it out in the dance hall and carried the excitement out into the parking lot which was right below our 10th floor window. I called the front desk twice was transferred to security who told me that H.P.D. (Honolulu Police Dept) was on the scene and that they had no control because it was not their property. So much for that idea. I decided to take another sleeping pill to try to recover, but I just tossed and turned until 5:30 AM when we decided to get up and get ready. I broke down and showed Sharon where we were going. We were going to take the 7:00 A.M. shuttle to the airport. We watched a little TV, took a shower, finished packing up and went downstairs at 6:45 A.M. The van was still there so we headed off to the airport.
July 19th, 2001
Where can you find us?
