Auckland Day 1

Sculpture of glass birds in the lobby of the Grand Mercure Auckland

Travel is full of little surprises and the first surprise was a delay of 45 minutes I leaving Calgary because there was a backlog in Vancouver and they didn't want us to take off until they had cleared it up. When we landed in Vancouver our flight to NZ was listed as boarding. We hoofed it to the gate and nobody had been called to board yet.  We started talking to two Kiwis, one of whom gave us the name of the pub she worked in and told us if we got there to give her name and tell the wait staff to give us a good deal. I put a note in my phone but I doubt we'll get to that particular pub. The other woman regaled us with a story of how she took the wrong seat on the flight and was into her third movie preview before the person who actually had that seat came along. Our Kiwi friend was amused but apparently the other woman wasn't.

And that leads me to my own really stupid blunder when coming through customs in Auckland. I was on a roll of  yes replies to the questions on the screen and answered yes to the question "Have you ever been deported?"  Oops.I searched for an undo button with no luck. The machine spat my passport out and I was instructed to see an agent 'over there.' On my way 'over there' another woman asked me what I had done and when I told her she gave me quite a scolding about not reading carefully and pointed out that falsifying documents was an offence.  I didn't point out to her how ludicrous it would be for someone to intentionally say they had gotten kicked out of a country when they were trying to enter another one. I hope her day got better from there on although if she took my slip as a personal affront, I don't have great hopes for that happening.

Luckily the woman at the kiosk merely asked me the question again and when I said no she looked over my declaration, stamped my passport and told me to have a good stay. Now I have a New Zealand stamp and R doesn't because he was smart enough to read and answer the questions correctly.  Did Grumpy Pants perhaps think that I was a wanton collector of country stamps?

Morning tea in my pod

The flight over was a real eye-opener.  Instead of being cramped and trying to sleep in an upright position, we spent the big bucks and travelled business class. We each had our own pod and we could text between them. That isn't as dumb as it sounds. The flight was quite noisy and rather than ask 'what' all the time we resorted to texting. Wifi was free during the flight. We got linen table cloths and real cutlery. When it came time to sleep, the seats converted into beds and we got pillows, a mattress, and a thick blanket. It wasn't as good as a night's sleep in a bed but I think I got six hours and the flight to Auckland seemed much shorter than the one we took from Edmonton to Iceland.

We were very lucky to get a room in the hotel at 5 in the morning. We intended to leave our bags and then come and check in later but they found us a room we could occupy immediately and we get to stay in it when we join the other Road Scholar folks the day after tomorrow. After we puttered around the room for a while and went upstairs for a coffee, we decided to go out and see if we could find an Apple Store to get a NZ/Aus charging cable for R's computer. It was raining a bit when we left so the first thing we did was to buy umbrellas. As we walked it started to rain a bit harder and then it started to really dump. By the time we got to the Apple Store we were a wee bit damp. I'm in good shape here because I have Goretex boots. R will be laughing in the Australian dessert when my feet are boiling inside their Goretex baggies. His boots are not Goretex so his feet got a little damp.

We got chatting to a woman in the store while waiting for one of the clerks to finish with another customer. Our accents gave us away and she asked where we were from. When we told her she apologized on behalf of the country for the lousy weather. We explained that at home snow was in the forecast so we were okay. She asked us where we were staying and then offered to give us a ride back to the hotel. We assured her that we wouldn't melt and that we could dry out at the hotel. She apologized again saying, "I don't like to see my visitors get wet." We shook hands and she wished us a good holiday.

It continued to rain as we walked back toward the hotel. We stopped for lunch at a little coffee shop and by the time we were finished the rain had stopped. Now we are in the room drying out a few things and checking out the possibilities for entertainment for the next two evenings. Somehow I think having an early night may just be the most attractive option for tonight.