The Day that Wasn't

We left Los Angeles on June 2. We arrived in Sydney on June 4. And June 3? It would seem to have not existed for myself and the other 200+ people on our massive Airbus. For the first time in my life, an entire day has escaped me. Bill Bryson, Iowa’s greatest author, is able to put it more poignantly than I:

“Each time you fly from North America to Australia, and without anyone asking how you feel about it, a day is taken away from you when you cross the International Date Line. I left Los Angeles on January 3 and arrived in Sydney fourteen hours later on January 5. For me there was no January 4. None at all. Where it went exactly I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that for one twenty-four-hour period in the history of the earth, it appears I had no being.” – Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country