Phew...catching up

Hello everyone! I have now been in New Zealand just shy of 48 hours, about 44 hours or so. I left New Hampshire Tuesday evening (EST) and flew on my first plane ride to LA. My first thoughts on flying: THE MOST BORING THING E-V-E-R. And American domestic flights suck. I did, however, have a window seat for my first flight and that helped a lot. Before I left, I was really nervous about flying. I hate heights and the thought of getting onto a giant bus with wings and entrusting in to keep me alive at 30,000 feet was not high on my priority list. :-P Because of my apprehension, I got a prescription from my doctor for a tranquilizer that I did not end up needing. Praise God! All through the flights I was very chill and mellow which I attribute to divine intervention.

The 6 hour flight from Boston to LA was not my favorite flight (American domestic with American Airlines, *gag*) and because of it, I was really not looking forward to my 14 hour flight from LA to Sydney. Fortunately, however, Quantas is a very nice airline and international flights are even better! I felt like I was in business class the whole time. I had a very nice seat in the center next to the aisle and the seat next to me was technically free but the little boy two seats over kept seat hopping from his to the empty one. BOS to LAX I felt like I was on a greyhound bus. There were tv screens fastened to the ceiling and everyone was packed in. LAX to SYD was amazing. There was tons more space, I got my own tv screen that was in my armrest and my tray was in the other. We were given two meals, dinner and breakfast. There were several movies that we could choose from, I ended up watching Casanova, My Life In Ruins and Star Trek (for the 4^th time :-D). Quantas also gave us awesome little goodie bags with cookies, candy and a bottle of water and a little baggie with socks, a lanyard, and sleeping mask. I have decided that whenever I have to fly, I will always fly international. No more domestic. ;-)

Sydney was nice. I didn’t get to really see anything except what little I could see from the plane while landing and taking off and the airport. Some people would say that technically I wasn’t in Australia because I was only in the airport and that is “international territory” but I still say I was there. ;-) I could have changed some money and gone through the gift shops but I didn’t have a very long layover and the woman in line at the money changing kiosk seemed to be having some trouble. I almost wish I had at least changed some money so I could have Australian money to show off but life goes on. :-P

The flight from Sydney to Auckland was a lot like the flight to LA. Same type of plane and greyhound bus feeling but they were much nicer and fed us even though it was only a two and a half hour flight. Oh, btw, airplane food is nasty. The only “airplane food” that I actually liked was from Boston to LA. They didn’t give us a meal for a SIX hour flight, we had to pay for a meal (cheapskates) but I was starving so I got a rather nice chicken caeser salad. The rest of the food, however, was gross.

The most nerve wracking thing was probably going through immigration and customs in New Zealand. I had to fill out a little questionnaire on the plane that asked me if I was bringing in any food or if I had recently been on a farm, etc. Immigration was actually easier than I thought, I didn’t have a phone number or address for where I was staying so I just gave them my cousins’ names and the city. Customs was worse because they saw something through x-ray in both of my checked bags that they stopped and asked me about but it was nothing and they never searched them. Not that I had anything to hide, I was just worried that they would say I had to declare some random thing that I had forgotten about but there was nothing.

Once I got through customs and everything, I was free to leave the airport, I just about ran out of there in my relief to just be out of there and away from airports for a whole month! Havie and Dahvede were waiting for me and informed me that the trip they had emailed me about just before I left and that I had not responded about was indeed taking place and we were jetting from the airport. Oh goody, I just spent approximately 24 hours traveling and was in desperate need of a shower and now I have a 6 hour car ride from Auckland down to New Plymouth to someone’s house that neither Havie nor Dahvede had met to spend the night and then Vede had a booth at a youth rally-type thing the next morning. I am glad I went, however, because through my jetlag (18 hours, yippy), I was able to see more of NZ than I perhaps would have. We drove down the west coast of NZ and I was able to see the Tasman Sea from something other than a plane. The country is absolutely beautiful. Parts of it reminded me of the mid-west but much more hilly. I have some pictures that I took but I am currently at my cousin’s alone and their internet thing is weird so I wanna make sure that I don’t kill it. They only have a certain amount of gigs of download each month on their internet and I don’t mean like downloading pictures and such, every time you load a site, there is a certain amount of download that goes on and they have a limited amount each month. I just want to make sure that I won’t be using all of their download space posting pictures on my blog.

On the way to New Plymouth, we stopped in a little town and had dinner at a local pub. Havie and I had chicken tender burgers and Dahvede had some burger with cheese and egg that looked good except for the really runny yoke. The food was good but different. When we got to Gary’s house (I think that’s what his name was :-P) he and his wife were very nice and offered us tea, coffee or something else that I don’t remember the name of. We all had the nameless drink which was good. It reminded me of liquid brownies. I enjoyed it but Havie said it wasn’t the best.

The drive from New Plymouth to Tauranga where my cousin’s house is was only about 4 hours. We stopped at a Burger King in NP for lunch which was weird for me. The Burger King was decorated in a very American 50’s style, like a 50’s diner. It was strange for me to be in New Zealand and to be eating very American food in a very American diner with a giant Elvis looking down at me.

Oh, before I forget, the rally-type thing we were at, Havie and I didn’t do a whole lot, we helped set up but left at one point to bum around town and get munchies. However, NZ teen styles vs. American teen styles….girls are pretty much the same. Lots of skinny jeans and leggings with the pin straight hair and strange dye jobs. The guys, however, oh gosh. For guys, the 80’s never left. Mullets are not only okay but “in.” Rattails are also “in.” Every other guy had either a mullet or a rattail or both. The ones who didn’t, had major bed-head but carefully styled bed-head. They had obviously taken lots of time to style their hair so that it looked like they had gone to bed with wet hair with product in it and had a restless night. Oh, and the mullets, half of them were bleached. Not the whole head, just the mullet part. I wanted to line up all the guys and go through with a pair of scissors and give them all decent haircuts.

The ride from NP to Tauranga was pretty uneventful. I got quite a few pictures from the car but it’s a little difficult to take decent pictures from a vehicle moving at about 100 km/h. When we got to Matt and Susie’s house, the first thing I heard was Susie greeting me and then little 4(?) year old Oceana saying, “Dowfy’s here. Dowfy’s here!” What a cutie. I had only met her once before but she was very happy to see me though she insisted that I couldn’t stay in Havalah’s room because it was hers. I talked to them for about an hour before deciding to go to bed. I lay in bed for 20-30 minutes but I couldn’t sleep. My body was perfectly willing to stay there forever but my mind was wide awake and wondering what was going on in the world. I got up and Matt and Susie had left to get some stuff done for immigration and then go on to some town for the weekend. Dahvede very graciously let me use his laptop to check my email but I didn’t want to take too long (I have already spent a hour or so writing all this) so I let him have it back after a half hour or so during which time I spoke to my cousin Cate on the phone and got to catch up for a little bit. She lives with her husband on the South Island so I won’t get to see her until just before the wedding but it was nice to talk for a bit.

After checking email I was even more awake than before so I watched Dahvede play xbox for a bit then played Wii. Oh man, I love Wii. I think I hurt my arm playing baseball though. LOL! I know, it’s all in the wrist but I totally get into games like this and so am accident prone. It is a very good thing they have a wrist strap in the wiimote. I also tried Wiifit and my Wiifit age is apparently 76. I didn’t think I was THAT out of shape :-P. I got up just before 9 this morning and was all alone. Matt and Susie are gone for the weekend and Havie and Dahvede are at a conference all day. So I am hanging here for a bit then probably calling my aunt to hang out at her house with my cousin Josiah. Although, I rather like being able to just bum and do my own thing for a while.

I believe I will finish up this post right here. I have tons more stuff to write about though, never fear. God bless all! Love and miss everyone.

(edit: posted on Saturday August 8th, 2009 at 12:30 pm New Zealand time)