Kia Ora! - I'm in New Zealand (Part I)

I'm finally here in Dunedin, and boy, has it been quite the journey.

I arrived at the Honolulu airport at about 6:45PM (3 hours before my departure time)on the 20th. I lounged around for a bit and waited for ValaRee to arrive. By the time it was 9PM and I didn't see ValaRee yet, I was getting a bit worried. She finally arrived, but we weren't able to get seats together :[. It was all right though. The 9 hours and 15 minutes of flight went by a lot faster than I expected. I'd like to mention that Air New Zealand is absolutely wonderful. All of the flight attendants were extremely friendly and took great care of all the passengers.

For the first couple of hours of the flight, I decided to watch the movie "Sione's Wedding" (a popular NZ comedy about four Samoan males). It was amusing. Each passenger is privileged with a small personal monitor embedded in the back of the seat in front of them and a small remote which allows you to choose from a very large selection of movies, television shows, documentaries, and songs throughout the flight. For free. It was very great. I listened to a couple of NZ rock bands and then decided to try and get some sleep. It was a restless sleep. I woke up once or twice each hour. But finally, it was time for landing.

We arrived at Auckland at about 6:20AM the 22nd, 20 minutes late. ValaRee and I made the journey together to customs where we stood in a very, very long line for about 30 minutes just so we could have our passports checked and stamped by a customs agent. The kiwi agent made fun of me when I told him I was going to uni to study English literature and art. He said, "You came all this way to study English Literature and art?" as if it might have been the most ridiculous thing he had heard. He asked me if I was going to be a scarfie, to which I replied Yes. He said, "Do you know what a scarfie is?" I said, "Yeah, I think I read somewhere that it means a university student." He laughed and said, "It's a drunken uni student." Ha (hey, New Zealanders really love alcohol).

By the time we got to baggage claim, it was nearly 7AM and our connecting flight to Dunedin was leaving at 8AM. By the time we got our luggage and went through the inspection at customs (where we were ordered to declare and surrender all food and liquids), it was 7:30AM.

We tried as best as we could to get to the domestic transfer terminal quickly with all our luggage. The agents told us it was too late and that we had to walk to the domestic terminal to have our flight rescheduled. While talking with the agent I realized I had forgotten my purse at the customs inspection. I was paniced. We rushed back and luckily, it was safe (Thank Goodness).

I can't even begin to describe to you how much of a struggle it was to walk from one end of the Auckland airport to the other with two large suitcases, a carry on bag, and a purse (we should have taken a shuttle; we did not).

At the domestic terminal they told us we wouldn't be able to board another connecting flight to Dunedin until 3:30 PM. It was only 8:30AM. We checked in our bags and went on our wage to wander around the airport for a bit.

We exchanged money and I bought a phone card. I needed to call the taxi service that was planning to pick us up from Dunedin at 10:45AM (which is the time we SHOULD HAVE arrived in Dunedin). And I had to call my family to let them know I was okay.

We were starving so we got something to eat in the food court. ValaRee got a toastie (sandwich) and I got a fruit and yoghurt salad (yes, Kiwis spell yogurt with a nice 'h' in the middle). We looked in some of the gift shops and were a bit shocked by the prices of things. I guess we hadn't expected things to be as expensive as they are. The exchange rate from USD to NZD is nice. One US dollar will yield almost two NZ dollars so because of that, the prices of things here are basically double the price of things in the US. So if you were to buy a book in the US for about $14-$15, it would cost about $30-$32NZ. I saw a t-shirt that costed $40. It startled me - until I processed that it would be about $20 at home, which is about right. But still, those high prices scare me. Definitely something I'll have to slowly get used to.

I don't know how, but we made the hours pass. We talked, watched the show Numbers on ValaRee's lap top, read, listened to our MP3 players, watched some Rugby on the tele. 3:30 arrived and we got on the plane. It took us about 45 minutes to get to Wellington. We waited there for a while, and then boarded our next flight, which took about an hour or maybe a little less to get to Christchurch. Then from Christchurch, we arrived in Dunedin at almost 8PM. We were met by the taxi representative who helped us carry our bags to the little shuttle that would take us about 25km or so to our flats.

The weather in Dunedin was about 12 degrees Celsius. It was overcast, gray, and rainy.

I felt like I was in Portland.

I don't have many pictures yet, but I promise I'll post some too, especially of our flat.

I'm too tired to finish telling you about how everything's been so far, but I promise I'll fill you in tomorrow (with some pictures).

It's almost 10PM and I'm exhausted.

Good night everyone!