The flight from Oz to NZ was great. I was lined up hoping that the travel agent hadn't stuffed up my booking when it came to my turn to be scanned and allowed onto the plane. I slid my ticket under the laser and was greeted with a completely different and extremely worrying sound from the scanner. The friendly hostess casually escorted me out of the line and over to an enormous man mountain who had less neck than a frog. He looked at my ticket with a frown and started punching away at the computer without telling me what I had done wrong. I looked around at the line and the last passenger was nearly boarding. Finally, he looked up from the computer with a big smile, said "All good mate", and handed me a freshly printed ticket. I had missed the joke. When I got to the doors of the plane I handed my ticket to an kindly looking older hostess and she ushered me through to what must have been business economy or the equivalent. I was stoked. I had my own TV, a seat that lay back nearly flat, a foot rest, the choice of watching heaps of new release movies and a hostess that served only me and a few other people. The first thing I though was "I hope this happens on the next flight".
I arrived in New Zealand a little after 4pm local time. The airport reminded me a little of the airport in Darwin; not a lot of people around, a laid back sort of customer service and lots of indigenous people. I wandered outside and smelled the air. I think the smell of a place is something that is truly unique; and NZ was no exception.
I then stalked up and down the airport trying to work out how I could prove to Canadian Immigration that I did have access to at least $4000. I think this was the only thing I forgot about before leaving. I couldn't get a receipt from an ATM because I was in another country and when I tried my ANZ card in the ANZ ATM it gave me the same result, due to the fact that it was in fact the New Zealand branch of ANZ and not the Aussie one (BOOORING, I know but it was something that was a bit of a pain in the ass and fun at the same time). Anyway I gave up and hoped I would find a solution in Canada.
The flight from Auckland to Vancouver was just as easy as the first, despite the fact that it was 9 hours longer. Waiting for the flight I hoped that when my ticket was scanned I would be printed a new one in a new seat. This wasn't to be the case. I boarded the plane and was seated next to two Canadians from Calgary. They told me how boring Vancouver was going to be and I realized if this kept up it was going to be a very long flight. I had resigned myself to the fact that I was stuck with these Vancouver hating assholes when a chubby male steward asked if any of us were by ourselves. I immediately said I was and he asked if I would like to spread out a bit. I packed up my bag and headed towards the front of the plane. This time I was still in economy but had three seats to myself. Perfect. I stretched out and watched some movies. I tried to sleep with no success, but somehow I wasn't tired anyway.
I touched down in Canada at 1pm local time (still the 17th of October).
