Welcome to New Zealand

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After a pretty uneventful nine hour flight I finally arrived in New Zealand around midday today. Upon arrival in Aukland I was a little worried because I forgot my vaccination card at home, but as it turns out Germans are one of the few non New Zealanders that don't have to go through immigration and can simply scan their passport and enter the country without showing any other documentation. Afterwards I picked up my backpack and went through baggage controll. In order to be rather safe than sorry I declared some items on my form that weren't necessary, like my skin care containing aloe vera (plantbased products). Eventhough I knew I didn't pack anything illegal in my luggage an irrational voice in the back of my head kept wondering what if I somehow did get drugs or weapons into my backpack....? Of course I didn't and made it through the controll quikly and without any trouble. Afterwards I made my way to the domestic Terminal for my flight to Nelson. This is where I experienced my first and so far only culture shock: after getting my boarding pass and giving up my luggage I only had to show my ticket once my flight was called and could then process to the hate without a security check of my carry in baggage. If I had wanted to I could have walked on to that plane with a bomb. The plane I boarded was tiny, only 17 rows with four seats each, so 68 seats in total. One of those seats was occupied by the girl/young woman that is now laying on the bed beneath me in the hostel as I later found out. In Nelson I picked up my backpack and reatached all the stars I hat taken of to protect it and only looked up the bus plan to the hostel afterwards. Stupid idea because that way I missed the bus by two minutes and had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. At the bus stop I needed to get off was a supermarket so I could buy some fruir and vegetable for dinner. The Tasman Bay Backpacker Hostel is very nice and cozy. I arrived just in time to take a hot shower, eat dinner and drunk a tea out of a cup that looks a lot like dad's christmas mug (picture) before it was time for the daily free chocolate pudding (=kind of a Lava cake) with ice cream. Afterwards I had a lovely chat with a girl froom california that offered to show me the parts of nelson that she already explored tomorrow.
I'll tell you all about that tomorrow afternoon, now I gotta go sleep, because my eyes kept falling shut while typing this post
See you then,
Giovanna

Edit: it's so cold in the hostel that I got back up to get my sleeping back as an addition to the Provider blanker.

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