Thursday, May 27, 2010

Tuesday Travel Day: April 27th.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010
We both slept awful last night. It was hot and humid all night long. We woke up to the alarm at 7 to rain, but both of us were up numerous times during the night. Ugh. But it was the last night in the van!!! Yay for that.
We drove around Devonport, perused to the town a bit, but ended up parking near the New World. Across from the car was a Stonebakery Café place that looked amazing. We looked in and knew that that is where we would be getting our lunch from later on. The Devonport Library was amazing. They had free internet computers (30 min) for visitors. Tim even saw a kitty, but it ran into the office before I could love on it.
Left the library, and up the block was the pet store with four 7week old kittens and one 11week old kitten. All black and white and puffy and adorable.
We finished up all of our business in Auckland and filled up the HellVehicle with gas. We pulled off a few blocks away from the return place and pulled out our sandwiches. Mine was a Brie Vegetarian that was awesome. Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, roasted red pepper, squash, and brie on a seasame roll. Tim had a HUGE BLAT (blt with avacado).
Got to the car place, Tim ran in. We pulled up to the door and unloaded our bags. We told the girl about all of the insane problems with the car. Numerous lights out, electric key didn’t work, chiller didn’t work (“It’s a chiller, its not a fridge”), windshield wipers barely worked, dvd player kept falling, and the van was absolutely filthy with crumbs and crackers. She was rather snippity, but apologized. She had us fill out a survey for some grad student that was ridiculous and long. By the end I had given up. And like, if we had been expecting a regular van, that had some bars welded into it, with a couch cushion, it would have been different. Even if it had been clean it would have been different. It was the fact that they oversold their product in the advertisements and didn’t give what they said they would deliver. That was our big problem. She called a cab for us, and soon we had left the piece of crap behind.
Checked in at the airport, not too bad a line, had to show our tickets out of Australia, got to the first point, NZ passport check, no one told us we had to fill out forms, so we had to step aside to do that, but they weren’t upset about it at least. Next step was security, kept our shoes on, zero line, walked straight through. It was fantastic. The Auckland Airport is super nice, at least the international terminal is. I would fly through here anytime.
Onboard, looked at our movie options, chose Bad Leiutenant, and got started on it right away. Take off was quite bumpy, as was the first 20 minutes or so. My tv shut down for a bit, and totally restarted, but at least it came back! Got served our meal.
We landed, and passed through the first customs passport check in under a minute. Stamp stamp, done. Picked up our luggage, but it took awhile to come out, and ours were some of the last ones and I was beginning to be a bit worried about it.
We were a bit worried about customs, our food was easy, wine and coffee packets, but we had to mark that we had been in nature basically and my hiking shoes had mud on them. We got sent to the guy, asked about our food, no problem, asked if we had been to farms, no problem, see ya. And straight through with no checking. Awesome.
Train station was right there in the airport, we got our ticket easily, and the train was right there seemingly waiting for us when we got to the right platform. It was a double decker train, just like the train we rode in Paris. I forget how much I like trains. They are very homey. It took us five stops to get to the Museum stop, and then we had to haul our luggage up four different sets of stairs to get out of the station, and then it was a bit of a hike to the hotel. It really wasn’t that long, but at that point, it seemed a lot longer.

1 comment:

  1. I am reading your adventure and The boy's adventure and I am getting the travel bug itch! It sounds like you are having fun. Be Safe, have fun

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