Traveling to Auckland

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Here I am, in New Zealand. I wasn't really excited beforehand, I never am when I travel. It doesn't really matter, till I'm there you know? But now I'm here,and I am very very excited. This country is amazingly beautiful, and I've only seen a small portion of it.



I left Durham on Christmas Eve at 7am, though my shuttle picked me up at 5am. The shuttle was surprisingly crowded, as was the airport. Guess I wasn't the only one beguiled by low Christmas ticket prices! The first flight to LAX was 5 hours in length, though I think I slept for the first three. My neck hurt, though. They don't provide pillows on inland flights. 😞



Regardless of my sore neck, my 13-hour layover in Los Angeles was amazing because I got to hang out with the fantastic Chris "Fatty" Ramos, a.k.a. Brother. First on the to-do list was Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, which I had heard of while going to Mudd but had never tried. It was pretty tasty, though I'm afraid Dame's Chicken and Waffles in Durham is even tastier. After stuffing ourselves to bursting, we toured a bit of USC's campus then headed back to his apartment to chill for a few hours. And what better way to chill than a few fantastic hours of COWBOY BEBOP!? Seriously, best show ever. <3 We finished off the solid evening with dinner at a family friend's place, which was of course amazing, and then it was back to LAX for flights #2 and #3.



GUYS. I don't know if you knew this, but the LAX international airport has a mall in it. Filled with like Dolce and Gabana and other fancy stuff. I wandered around and took photos. Verrah shiny place.



I flew on Air Tahiti Nui, which wasn't bad as far as service goes. Not as nice as the airline I flew on to India, but still a few levels above US flights by a long shot haha. They give you a cute little package at the beginning of the flight that has two types of headphones, a sleeping mask eye cover things, long socks, and ear plugs. A meal was served, and there were lots of entertaining movies. My first flight to Papeete (pah-pee-EH-tee) in Tahiti was 8 hours, but I don't remember much of it because I was too busy sleeping my brains out of the first 6 hours like a boss. After that I watched most of The Library Wars, a Japanese movie. I think the meal was a frittata, but I don't really remember. It was food. Free food. That is all that matters.



We were welcomed to Tahiti by a double rainbow (WHOO), two Polynesian guitarists and a Polynesian dancer-lady. Having not known anything about Tahiti, I was extremely surprised at how similar it was to Hawaii. Logically, it makes sense. They're very close so their native culture is the same, but I really didn't expect it beforehand. It was very humid, actually raining sometimes, but a nice breeze was coming up off the ocean if you could find it. Being an enterprising young woman, I found that the top floor of the small airport was essentially empty and that there were huge sliding windows that opened easily. So I found a quiet corner, slid one open and enjoyed the ocean breeze and view while waiting for my next flight. Pretty freaking awesome.



My third and final flight was a 5-hour flight to Auckland (AWE-kland, sometimes almost oakland). I stayed awake for this one and watched Midsummer's Question, another Japanese movie, and a great movie called Now You See Me (I think) with Woody Harrelson about 4 magicians pulling an awesome stunt. I highly recommend it! There's a hand-to-hand combat scene that is really well done. We were served another meal, and this one was exciting because I got to try fromage blanc for the very first time! It's super delicious, somewhere between yogurt and cream cheese. Mmmmmm. Then, it was off the plane! (But that'll be in my next post!)



My learning experience for this portion of the trip, besides the culture in Tahiti, was learning that Tahiti is French Polynesia, so most of the people spoke French. The announcements were given first in French, then English (until we landed in Auckland, when they were given in Maori). Additionally, most of the passengers were French and I realized that I am very uncomfortable when surrounded by French speakers. Or perhaps it was just that I was surrounded by not-English speakers. I'm not sure, but it was an interesting thing to learn about myself.

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