Now that I’ve spent several days resting, recovering, and catching up with homebound emails and chores (and recovering from the COVID I caught on the plane on the way back), it’s time to start putting into words, sentences and paragraphs the fabulous time that Lisa Twining and I spent in New Zealand. It’s going to take several blog posts, and I have to figure out a way to get the images from my phone into my PC. The online instructions for my Samsung Galaxy A12 smartphone don’t work, so I’m stuck at the moment unless I download each image individually, something that would take me an enormous amount of time to do. Lisa tried to make the phone do its thing, so I know it isn’t me. It’s a glitch, so I’ll probably be getting into contact with Samsung to have them walk me through a successful solution. IT SHOULDN’T BE THIS HARD TO MOVE IMAGES FROM A PHONE TO A PC!
Lisa and I left from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on United Flight 2168 at 3 p.m. on March 7th. We had a connecting flight in Los Angeles on UA642, which left at 9 p.m.
At LAX
At Los Angeles International Airport, the place was locked down like a prison in a B movie. No one was allowed in unless they worked for the airport, an airline, or had a flight out. Someone at our gate was taken away by police in handcuffs for no reason we could discern, unless he made the mistake of sitting with his girlfriend until she flew off (my best guess.) The announcements sounded like something you’d hear in a prison. No friendly voices there!
Lisa and I managed to sleep a lot of the way across the Pacific Ocean during the 13.5 hour flight. The turbulence was minimal, serving mostly to rock us gently to sleep. We had female pilots for three of our four flights there and back, and they landed the planes with such precision and smoothness that we both commented on it.
We arrived in Auckland on March 9th, losing an entire day — March 8th — while in transit because of the international date line. The last leg of the journey landed at AKL International at about 7:25 NZ time. We rode in the economy section — that was all I could afford to get us there — but it was fine. We had ample legroom and seat widths sufficient for comfortable passage.
Before landing in Auckland, flight attendants passed out declarations papers for everyone to fill out, even though we had nothing to declare at customs on the way in.
Funny travel anecdote
Lisa and I had packed ample “snacks” (individually, without consulting each other) for the long trip to Auckland in case the airplane fare didn’t look or smell appetizing, but we knew we had to leave all opened/baggy-encased food on the plane because NZ doesn’t allow food to be brought into the country.
I had received a large bag of Ghirardelli chocolate (a bon voyage gift from the McCrane family) just the day before we departed (perfect timing!), so I tucked away about eight pieces of that, some tiny Tootsie rolls (in case the Ghirardelli chocolate disappeared before we landed in NZ) plus a couple fig bars and Welch’s Fruit and Yogurt Dots and put them into baggies in my carry-on.
Lisa packed several baggies of granola and chips. But we were so well-fed aboard the flight that we didn’t get to much of it, so we had a serious pile of snacks that had to be left on the plane. Of course, we polished off the chocolate, as we didn’t have any intention of sacrificing that to the airport gods!
Lisa took a photo of our “stash” before I dumped it all into the plastic waste bag that the flight attendants carried through the cabin toward the end. We were hysterical, imagining we’d be remembered long after we were gone for squirreling away enough food to feed probably ten additional passengers!
The food stash we had to leave behind when we arrived in NZ!!!
Before leaving, Lisa had looked at the long-range weather forecast for New Zealand. It was solid rain for the entire two weeks!!!
But that isn’t what happened … at all. Read on!
Upon arriving at Auckland International, we entered the terminal beneath wooden murals of Maori art. We went through customs relatively quickly and collected the two pieces of luggage we’d checked in. Then we headed out to look for Helen Schofield and Deborah Davies, our friends and hosts during our two-week stay.
But before we could get to them, we had to pass by “sniffer dogs” (well-trained beagles), one of whom decided my carry-on held a potentially forbidden item.
I sat the carry-on on the floor and allowed the beagle to investigate further while his handler asked me, “Do you have any food in there?”
“No.”
“Did you while on the plane?”
“Yes, I had some Ghirardelli chocolate and some strawberry yogurt dots, but we we ate them before landing.”
“Very well. Enjoy your time in New Zealand.”
And off we went to find our hosts through a set of sliding glass doors.
