Which FT'er hits 2008 first?
 

Just thinking..... (too much time on my hands clearly! Or maybe it's the Jack Daniels?;))

It is now just after 11pm here in Canberra.... so 2008 starts for us in less than an hour....

Given the time zones some of you must already be in the New year....(??)

Wonder who was "first"???

I bet some of the guys who were on the UA deal to AKL and who decided to celebrate in NZ!

There are quite a few New Zealanders that are on FT...

Them of course as well.

I guess it's unknown if any of the crew on the International Space Station (ISS) is a Flyertalker. They probably hit New Year first and several times (16 times) ;)

IIRC the first time zone is Chatham Islands, some 45 minutes ahead of NZ daylight saving time. I would be surprised if any FTers are in Chatham Islands right now, but possible.

I should have remembered the Chathams! Seem to recall reading about them in a discussion on where to go to "be first"... Some folks wanting to be as "early" as possible gathered in Timaru IIRC...... (:eek:)...

KF - I thought you were going to be in the air over the change? Or am I thinking of someone else??:D

Regardless of WHEN 2008 started for y'all... hope you have a "pearler" of a year....;)

Absolutely. Chatham Islands (no, I'm not there) insists on being 45 mins ahead of the International Date Line instead of 24 hours behind it. And the last to go into 2008 will be Samoa and (I think) Tahiti, who are actually further west than Chatham (so Chatham should be last rather than first).

I was on a flight from ORD to NRT (where I am posting this right now), with final destination PEN. I boarded my flight at ORD at 11.59am Dec 31, so woud probably hit the international date line and hence new year's day :D probably about 14 or 15 hours of the first person in this world to hit the new year.

I thought the fact that the first person to hit NY's day would be somebody on a westward trip across the dateline amuses me :).

Its now 6:21PM in Nagoya, Japan. We celebrated New Year hours ago. Happy New Year to all

Chatham Islands are part of NZ. So just like the other kinks in the international date line (eg Russia and Alaska), it varies from 180 degrees here to ensure the whole country is on the same date.

Do I win for being one of the first AND one of the last?
 

Watched the fireworks at skytower in AKL from the top floor lounge of the hyatt. Then flew back to HNL new years morning, to arrive new years eve evening and celebrate for the second time some 23 hourly time zones later..

Do I win?

Sounds to me like you and Kiwi Flyer were on the same flight and had the same idea.:D

D'oh! And we had exchanged PMs about NZ and it never came up that we were on the same flight ex-AKL.

Did the smell of the turbulence induced vomit make it's way up to biz class from the oversized baby in the bassinet on the bulkhead behind biz class. UGHHH.

A PM is in order..

Way back when they used to have fireworks over the Colorado River near Hoover Dam. I was a teenager and I thought it was too cool to walk from the Arizona side to the Nevada side of the dam and do midnight twice in one hour. Then when I lived in Arizona I thought it was crazy that they don't have daylight savings time and you had to keep up with what time it was everywhere else. So to know that Samoa is west of Chatam but behind it time wise just adds to the confusion that time zone manipulations creates.

Be it as it may, Happy New Year wherever you celebrated it. In the Heart of America we had fireworks downtown at 7PM so go figure. Omaha is a great place to live but you never want to visit here (oh, OK, maybe during the College World Series).

Doh indeed. No smell at my seat - I guess I was far enough forward.