June 28, 2017 – Christchurch to Auckland to Houston to Tampa

It’s a simple plan – get up, finish packing, have breakfast, turn in the car, ride to the airport, board a series of planes.  What could go wrong?  Well, nothing really went wrong, so much as slightly awry.

We woke before the alarm and had lots of time for a last breakfast with the laid-back morning news as background.  We each brought home a package of Marmite, in case our kids hadn’t had the experience, cleaned up the kitchen, and went back down the hall to finish backing.  This is the first time I’ve ever had to sit on a suitcase to close it!!

As we’re leaving we meet the new resident coming in.  He asks how we’re getting to the airport!  We figure he must have been dropped off at the end of the driveway and speculate on how he plans to get around without a car!

Alumni House - Canterbury - B&B

And such a beautiful aroma!

We think it should take fifteen minutes to get to the rental-car office and we’ve got a screen shot of the route.  Piece of cake.  Well.  No.  There’s construction and we can’t make it the last mile!  Time to burn some phone data!  But The Voice doesn’t know about the construction, either, so we drive until we see something familiar and finally pull into the parking lot just a few minutes later than we had planned.

The same little redhead is working the desk and she’s as funny as the first time!  We talk and laugh while we wait for the new driver to return from the airport and scoop us up.  We assure two new arrivals that they are at the start of a marvelous adventure and then head off with Dave.  It’s his first day on the job and he is loving it!  He used to be in charge of a fleet of thirty-five trucks and is loving that he works with nice, happy travelers instead of truck drivers!!

He drops us off and we head off in search of a place to drop off our bags.  We find a friendly, helpful Air New Zealand lady to takes us in hand.  She tags our bags, prints all three of our boarding passes and points out our next stop.  There we get rid of our heavy bags and wonder why no one has weighed them!  Might be a good thing, though!  I’ve rationalized that if I can lift it with one hand, it probably doesn’t weight over the fifty-pound limit;  but I’d just as soon not find out I’m wrong!!

Maori for "welcome";  but much like "aloha" it has other uses as well.

Our bags go one way and we go another, searching out security and our gate. It’s all pretty painless and we’ve allowed plenty of time, so there’s no rush and no stress.  Security requires boots and laptops;  but there’s hardly anyone there, so there’s no pressure.  Our gate is easily found, and eventually our flight boards. We make the short hop to Auckland. The cabin staff manages to find time to serve beverages and a choice of corn chips or chocolate cookies!

In a couple of hours we are making the transition from the domestic terminal to the international one.  We had hoped to take the shuttle, since we vividly remember the trek from our arrival;  but the directions call for us to find door number four – and we don’t!  So we walk and it’s cool because we meet a young woman who was in the country for an interview at the same university where our B&B hosts teach! We have a delightful chat and the walk doesn’t seem as long with company.  The three of us work out where we’re supposed to go next.

When we get oriented at the international terminal, she goes off in search of food and we settle down to wait the short time before boarding.  It is a full flight and there’s no hope of shifting seats, so we’re stuck with six and seven, the third and fourth (aisle) seats in the center section.  Marilyn has the aisle seat.  This leg of the trip will be thirteen and a half hours.

 There are lots and lots of movies and TV shows available on each personal entertainment screen, and blankets, and pillows, and headsets.  Once we’re at our cruising altitude, dinner is served.  There’s a choice of chicken or beef.  I choose the beef in a red sauce, and it comes with peas, mashed potatoes, whole-wheat roll and butter, quinoa salad, cheese and crackers, and hokey pokey ice cream!  And a glass or two of an acceptable merlot.  You certainly can’t starve on Air New Zealand.

During the next few hours, water is served to those of us who are still wide-eyed.  The best thing I watched was an Eric Idle special called, “The Entire Universe”.  It’s a musical and ends with the iconic, “The Galaxy Song”! (It’s not currently available on BBC iPlayer, but worth looking for!) Then, hours and hours later, the lights gradually come up in the cabin and soon breakfast is served.  There is a continental choice;  but we have a five-hour lay over in Houston and need more sustenance than that.  The other choice is scrambled eggs, chicken sausage, baked beans, mixed fresh fruit, and strawberry yogurt.

In Houston we have to go through customs, reclaim our baggage, drop it off again and go through security before we can board our United flight to Tampa.  It’s all a little inexplicable.  We’ve carefully filled out our customs declaration cards and are clutching them as we find the GOES kiosk.  We put our passports in the slot, look at the camera, put our fingers on the pad to record our fingerprints and get our receipts.  Only two of my four fingers register;  but that’s enough, thankfully!  We give our passports and receipts to the customs agent who asks if we’ve brought in any food and passes us on!  We never even turned in our declarations!  And it all happened before we claimed our bags!

On to the carousels, where we see our teacher friend again.  She gets her bag quickly and disappears, while we continue to wait.  An airport official told us that our bags would be on number eleven because we were economy.  Only the priority bags were on number nine.  After watching eleven for a LONG time, Marilyn finally asks for help.  Turns out we had red priority arrows on our bags and mine shows up quickly on number nine.  Eventually Marilyn’s shows up – on number eleven!  All’s well, etc…

From there we have to go through security again.  It turns out that Houston doesn’t have TSA pre-check in this terminal and we have to remove our laptops and boots.  Drat! 

We’ve still got a long wait, so we search out the United Club and, once again, use Courtenay’s passes.  THANK YOU, COURTENAY!!  There’s food and comfy chairs and water and wifi and we learned later that the alcohol was free, too!  Just as well we didn’t know.  After being awake for more than twenty-four hours, we didn’t need it!

The real world is starting to assert itself.  I have a voice message from the siding guys.  By the time I get it, it’s after working hours, so I just leave a message and try to forget about it until I get home.  Nothing I can do from here!

It’s finally late enough that we can go down to our gate to wait to board. On the way we stop at the Travelex stall, right across from the Club door, and trade in our New Zealand dollars.  Marilyn only has five left and I’ve only got twenty, so we did a good job!! When we get to the gate,  Marilyn asks if we can have the two open seats in the exit row, and the UA agent takes pity on us and says yes, since it’s not a full flight.  

Everything is starting to blur.  We figure that by the time we get home it will have been thirty-three hours – and yet it’s still June 28^th!!  Marilyn has the window seat and I’m in the middle.  We receive a drink from United’s beneficence.  Not even a cracker to go with it.  And as we approach TPA we find that a thunderstorm has taken up residence above the airport.  We circle around the light show for about twenty minutes before it is safe to land. Marilyn gets some great shots of the lightening. When it’s okay, I text the guys and Stu says he’s here!  Hurray!  He’s waiting at the other end of the shuttle and he’s such a welcome sight!

Our bags appear, Stu takes us to his car and, poof, we’re home!  We drop Marilyn off at her house and then I am greeted by my three mus-cat-eers!  I see a long, long sleep in my immediate future.