I LOVE Air New Zealand! that was by far the best 13 hour period I have ever spent on a plane. First - there was an individual television screen at every seat and the in-flight entertainment started as soon as you got on the plane - not after take-off. Next - I got the whole row to myself! 3 seats! for the price of 1!! So exciting!! Third - Bear Grills did the 'emergency procedures' video and it was hilarious! Lastly - They came by and served fruit-infused water and candy. I love my cnady adn fruit-infused water!
I actually slept for a fair amount of time and even tough it's 6:00pm and I've only had one good and one bad cup of coffee, I don't feel super tired as you normally do after a 13 hour flight. (For the record, the flight was 12 hours and 40 minutes, but I'm counting the amount of time I spent on the plane before we left the gate as the other 20 minutes and rounding to an even 13 hours.)
When I landed, I had no problem with getting my visa (as me later), the customs people had to clean off the bottom of my hiking boots (contamination something-or-other) but then I took a bus that dropped me off within a block of my hostel, put my stuff down, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and got a reccomendation on a breakfast cafe. At this point, it's still only 8:00am. I found this great little cafe and the guy recommended the eggs benedict, which was great and is one of my favorite breakfast foods, adn I got a latte (that was my good cup of coffee - the bad one was on the plane). I sat, wrote and read the paper for about an hour until I decided I stayed my welcome.
I decided that I wanted to go to Waiheke Island which had been recommended to me by a soccer friend. So I walked down to the ferry buildign and bought a return ticket to go explore the isaldn. It's a beah isladn that looks almost exactly like Hawaii - I thought I had telelported for a minute there. it has some Bodega Bay feel to it also, but the arcitecture and flauna were straight out of Hawaii. I guess they both technically are Pacific Islands! I hiked around the island, wine tasted in a winery and sat on the beach. It was very relaxing until the blister started to form on the back of my heel - me and my damn converse obsession!
Everyone in New Zealand has been so nice and welcomeing and slightly offended that I'm only spending 3 days in their country (even the Immigrations Officer seemed upset - I thought my visa was in jeopardy there!).
