February 26-28
We got to the airport in Rochester, and I had no idea how stressed out Nick was. Only when we picked up a sandwich and sat down to eat it did he voice his concern. Our flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles was delayed, which worked out ok, because we had more time to get from one terminal to the other. Nick’s concern was that we would possibly miss our flight to Auckland. But we had a two hour layover, so I didn’t really see that happening. We were only running behind by half an hour anyway. This was one of those rare moments where I was the one who was calm and Nick was the one stressed out.
The plane to Auckland was the biggest plane I’ve ever been in. It had three rows of seats in it. There were three seats on the outside rows and four in the middle row. It was also like a double decker bus, there was a floor above the one we were on. All this seemed pretty insane, especially since I heard the flight attendant say there were only about five free spaces. There was also a pretty good amount of leg room, nothing like the planes we take to go across country.
So I guess I’ll start the story telling now. Before I left, my OBGYN suggested wearing supportive stockings to make sure I didn’t get blood clots in my legs. Luckily, Nick had Ted stockings from his knee surgery years ago. I didn’t really mind wearing them accept when we had to walk at a fast pace because they kept falling down. Anyways, Nick and I get on the plane to Auckland and we are all ready to go. We had dinner on the plane, which was free believe it or not and not all too bad (Nick would like me to insert here, he got a free glass of Shiraz with dinner too, which also wasn’t bad, I wouldn’t know, I’m on a nine month hiatus of alcohol, but I’ll keep you posted about Nick’s taste for wine). After dinner, we were so tired and ready to sleep. Nick had the window seat. He’d already pulled out his pillow and was on his way to Vedanta land. I couldn’t seem to get comfortable and I was getting really hot. I took off my hoodie and that didn’t seem to help me any. Finally, I came to the conclusion of taking of the Teds and my socks, being sockless and shoeless for a good couple hours. Doing so only relieved a bit of my heat problem. Then I remembered the breathing technique I learned in YTT. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it, but I started doing it, and it started to help, but not enough. I thought I was going to die! Why didn’t they have any air vents on the plane? Finally, I had to wake Nick up and make him trade places with me so I could sit by the cool window, there was no other way.
As the plane got closer to land we were able to see the sun rise. Nick and I both agree we’ve never seen the sky such brilliant colors as the sun was coming up. The coolest part was when we landed. We could see all the green grass and had the feeling that we’d finally made it. New Zealand welcomed us with a rainbow on the runway. What a cool way to come to a country! We had to go through customs after arriving. The man there greeted us warmly. As he stamped my passport and marked his initials on it I said, “Man, I wonder how many people have your initials on their passports?” He smiled and looked at me crazy, like no one had ever thought of that and said, “That’s a lot of people.” Leave it to me to think of something off the wall like that.
Nick had already made arrangements for a shuttle from the airport to downtown Auckland where we’d stay for the night. I’m not entirely sure how I felt about being on the other side of the road while driving. It’s not as foreign as I thought, but also not as comfortable as I thought it would be. It will take some getting used to. Nick and I sat in the very back of the shuttle. We both decided Auckland reminded us of San Francisco a bit, only cleaner. The houses were really well taken care of, there was not much trash, lots of traffic and hills, just like the city. One of the coolest things we saw was parents walking their kids to school. There were no cars going into the school to drop of their kids, the parents were actually walking on the sidewalks holding hands with their kids, taking them to their school.
We got to The Grand Chancellor and wanted to check our bags into the hotel because check in wasn’t until 1 and we had four hours until that time. The woman at the front desk told us our room was not available yet, but she moved us to one that was. I was jumping with joy inside. I wanted a shower, to brush my teeth and lay down! Once we got to our room we of course had to check it out. We were on the 11th floor and had a great view of the bay. Our room was like a small apartment. It had almost a full sized fridge, an oven with a stove, a dishwasher, dishes, a washer and dryer, the works. After I took a shower I realized my ankles had swollen. I didn’t realize this would happen so early on in my pregnancy, but then, my doctor advised me to keep those Teds on for the full flight. Oops. We laid down and slept until about 1:30, Nick took another shower because he didn’t feel like the first one was efficient enough, and then we started walking around the city looking for a place to pick up some food. We found a little pub that had fish’n chips and that’s where we landed. There was a sport on the TV neither of us had seen before. It looked like women’s basketball, but there was no backdrop on the basket and the lines on the court were marked different than a typical basketball court. I asked the woman who brought us our food what it was and she didn’t know. I thought it strange she didn’t know the sport was, but she probably thought it strange I would ask such a question. We walked around a couple different stores and then Nick spotted a stack of rocks that was quite like a statue and lush green trees and a trail of steps going up the hill. We decided to go up and see what it was all about. We got to the top and then found a place in the shade to sit and lay in the grass for a while and relax. There were a lot of people out walking around and enjoying the sunshine and shade. A few of them were even sunning themselves in their bikinis. I’m not so sure how much time passed there, but we enjoyed the weather, the trees and the birds. We also talked about what we think out kid will be like. It was time to move on so we got up and checked out the rest of the park and walked through part of Auckland University area and then back down toward the ferries. We happened to come across a place that will set you up with tours and stuff and found a really great book called New Zealand Handy Atlas. Nick said he drove across the US twice with a similar Atlas, so he thinks when we do get lost, it will by our choice. This would be our tool to function for most of the trip because we didn’t have GPS. There were also brochures about campsites, which was also important because that’s what the plan was; to camp.
For dinner we went back down to the water and picked a place. We picked up some cash at the ATM. For some reason we are having a time trying to use our ATM/credit cards in stores. I think it has something to do with the military bank, but everything is fine when we want to take out cash. So cash it is. We ordered the Baked Hapuku, which is a white fish, and mussels and clams. The mussels and clams were good, but the fish was the best fish I’ve ever had in my life. I’m not sure if it was the broth it was baked in that made the flavor so good, but it was amazing. The salad was so fresh too, and the vinaigrette they used was a bit tart but went well with the richness of the fish. A couple sat down next to us from L.A. who was leaving the next morning. They seemed a lot like us and told us some places to check out. They went kayaking and tramping (what we would call hiking) around both islands. Then they asked us if we liked what we’d gotten for dinner because the waitress suggested it to them when they asked. They ended up getting it. Not sure if they liked it as much as we did because we left just as it came to their table.
It’s Tuesday morning, we’ve had breakfast and now we are sitting in our room. I’m writing this blog and Nick’s checking out the Atlas to make sure we’re on our game. We will be leaving here in about an hour to pick up the camper van and start heading out towards Waitomo for the night.
