Journey to New Zealand Pt. 2

Hello blog!

I know it has been a hot minute since I first posted and I apologize for being so late on updating you on the last leg of my journey to New Zealand! It has been genuinely crazy around here trying to get settled in while also juggling meeting other international students and my new flatmates aka strangers. Also, my laptop has been dead for awhile because my adaptor wasn’t working (whoops). Anyways…I’ll give you a quick run-down of what happened after I boarded the plane from chi-town.

Since my carry-on bags were overweight, I had to take out a few items from my backpack and carry them on board the plane. Once on this massive aircraft, I made it allll the way back to my seat (52E) to discover I have been put in a middle seat. Crap.

I don’t want to spend too much time complaining about the whole middle seat thing, but it was a bit rough. I got out of my seat a total of two times during the entire 16 hour flight because the women sitting next to me were either asleep or eating. I felt rude trying to wake them up to get by, so I thought it best to just not drink water and stay put. It was difficult to sleep on the plane because there was no place to rest my head either. If it weren’t for the eye-mask my mom gave me I don’t think I would have slept a wink the whole flight.

Also, weird side note but the woman sitting next to me watched the same movie 5 times in a row (???). Why? I still don’t know.

Although I had the dreaded middle seat, the flight wasn’t altogether that bad. When I think back on it now, its all just a blur of movies, plane food, grogginess and sleep. I also have to give a 5 star rating to Air New Zealand for how nice the flight was. The service was excellent and the limitless wine was definitely a plus as well. Solid 10 out of 10 - definitely would fly with them again.

We landed in Auckland after 16 long hours and went directly to customs. At this point, I highly highly regretted my luggage choices. Since my baggage was over-weight everything was more difficult (especially the 20 minute walk from the international terminal to the domestic terminal). Instead of riding the actual airport shuttle to the domestic terminal I rode the struggle bus there instead. Meaning, I walked the entire route carrying all my luggage lol. Once I FINALLY arrived at the correct terminal, I had to re-check-in and re-check my bag in the oversized and fragile bags section. Next, I had to go through security. After I made it through security, I made it to the gate just barely in time to board the plane! It was a mess, but I was seated next to a friend from DU on the flight and another boy who was very nice as well so I guess that makes up for it.

After the longest travel experience of my life (22 hours to be exact) I made it to Dunedin at noon on Sunday the 30th of June! Hooray! Hurrah! Yeehaw! Yahoo!

I feel so blessed to be here now in this wonderful country!

Thanks for reading :)